To the Vault of Stars
by Ar-Kaos
Summary: Third part in multi crossover. Ranma and Nabiki, together with the rest of Earth's Defense force, enjoy some well earned peace. Alien attacks and treachery . Politics. liquid Therapy, the secret revealed. Dark. Arc complete
1. Stargazing

Chapter 1: No peace for the?

Two years went by in a hurry and X-Com never let up. On Cydonia the base was expanded time and time again, new facilities, new hydroponic farms, new labs, workshops and hangars and most recently and perhaps most importantly a new mass collider. The massive cyclotron particle accelerator was the final step in creating Synthetic Elerium on a practical scale. The building of it had all but suspended all other new alien technologies; it had simply used that much Elerium. It was due to go into mass production in two solar days, and the occasion was to be marked with quite some pomp and ceremony. Which is another reason why Nabiki was unhappy.

"This is all your fault Ranma," she murmured, for the umpteenth time, as she waddled around the room. The reason for her ungainly walk was the large protrusion that used to be her well toned flat stomach. The reason it was Ranma's fault was partly because he had a big part in putting the baby in there and partly just because he was her husband and as every man knows its all their fault after the woman gets that ring on her finger. What was worse he had the effrontery to be away on mission as the day approached and so he wasn't here to be told how much he was to blame.

They had managed to spend the vast majority of the time since the award ceremony together, her back in the driving seat on Mars base and him training the next load of commandos for the newest theatre they were expected to face. Zero gravity training had to be done and done well, from the first moment it started it was obvious to any participant that the whole concept was alien to mankind. Humans were just not built to operate in a truly weightless environment without any constant up or down. Of course the idea of Ranma tied to a gym was almost an anathema, after a few months of watching him slowly going wall crazy she had just given up and told Major General Jack O'Neil to find him something to do.

Jack had come back with a job. Still smarting from his own promotion beyond operational work Jack pushed the paper until he found a hole. Lieutenant Colonel Saotome Ranma was reassigned to exploratory work. The new Hyper-drives were allowing the X-Com crafts to reach unprecedented speeds. The new Graviton Conversion engines took a modified Elerium fuel and produced more thrust than anything previously known, including managing interstellar speeds. What this meant was that astronomy became a matter of international relevance and that X-Com had the ability to investigate anomalies.

So Ranma, aboard the Earth Space Vessel Endeavour, was currently on an extended mission to the Cynos star system's third planet to investigate some pyramid type structures that had been discovered there. This left the heavily pregnant Nabiki without the only person really capable of defusing her anger. The truth was that she was just plain scared. She knew that she and her baby could not be in better hands than they were, she knew that the alien surgical techniques could save both of them from even beyond the point of death and she knew her child wouldn't even be traumatised by its birth because of the volunteers from psi-ops. But none of this was Ranma, and that was what she wanted. For months after the Commando rescued her she was unwilling to even let him out of her sight. Over time and with help that fear had all but subsided but she just could not feel really safe without him. Her only real solace was that he was even more worried about her than she was. For a man with first hand experience of the technical brilliance of X-Com doctors he had fussed himself stupid at every opportunity. It had been endearing to begin with and part of it still was, but Nabiki had found the fussing increasingly irritating, and so when the opportunity to send him away had arisen she had taken it, a fact she daily regretted.

On top of all of this Nabiki had several more babies to nurse, economic miracles of blind and bluff. The X-Com high command, urged by Nabiki, had made the decision to hide the extent of the organisation's growing influence behind front companies. Now O'Neil Cybersystems had been joined by a host of other companies, bought and restructured to handle the distribution of alien-human hybrid technologies to the nations of Earth. The latest of these was proving to be more problematic than she had hoped. It was called 'Marsec' and had been hijacked by the right wing 'hawks' who were pushing for greater proliferation and larger pushes into weapon technologies. The truth was Nabiki and Ranma were in agreement with them on a whole range of issues but the personalities in charge just went too far and rubbed the couple the wrong way. Jack and his people Earthside agreed wholeheartedly, and a clash was coming.

Nabiki had just got off the phone with, Monsieur Armand, the interim chairman of Marsec and her mood was positively foul. Normally she would go and watch Ranma for a while, bask in his attention when he could steal a few moments and then return to work relaxed and optimistic. But the idiot had got himself posted away to a whole new solar system. So now instead she was chewing her lollipop stick and muttering curses.

"Colonel," called her aide-secretary, "the experimental transmitter is due to be tested today, perhaps you would like to observe?" It was a blatant attempt to pacify Nabiki, even down to the use of her rank, the poor girl knew that Nabiki had long planned to use the test to call Ranma and was desperately trying to cheer her up with the thought.

"Thank-you Yuka," Nabiki replied, mollified a little despite herself, "Tell them to call me when they are ready to pick a target," she ordered, knowing full well that Yuka had already approached the scientists with her boss's preferred test medium. She also knew that Armand had approached the girl to spy for him, and that she hadn't yet refused. Yet another thing that would require her personal attention when all she really wanted was to put on Ranma's red shirt and bury herself into his embrace.

Nabiki resigned herself to a few more hours of number shuffling and contact sifting, promising herself that she would extract a massage out of that bastard of a husband she had married the moment he got home. Well maybe not the moment he did but as soon as he had recovered from her other demands. She had now entered her final stage of pregnancy and the knowledge that she no longer had to abstain but was forced to by distance was driving her mad with lust. Once again she swore at Ranma for being insensitive enough to let himself be sent away.

-

* * *

-

Millions of miles away Ranma sat against a cargo hold wall, absentmindedly bouncing a ball off six surfaces and holding a grounding bar to stop him floating off. He had discovered something: he truly loved zero-g. Not just a little bit but really passionately, here he could fly, soar and glide like he was born to it. The ryu of his youth had been aerial based but none of its masters had even dared dream of the true flight Ranma had found in space. Free of the bonds of gravity he felt like he had shed all the cloying restraints of his damaged psyche and stripped himself down to a purer core, or something. As anyone could tell he had also discovered something else, he really hated long space trips. He had worn himself down three times already today doing aerial katas, he had run his team through three new exercises and raced some of them along the exterior of the ship, and still he was bored.

"Bored, bored, bored" he muttered to himself, all the while knowing that there was more to it than that. Once again he closed his eyes and conjured up her image in his mind's eye. He could never get it right, never do her justice but even the attempt lifted him in no small way. He breathed her name with reverence and pride, Kami he loved that woman. And now, now she was pregnant, that just blew his mind, sure he had always assumed he would have kids when he had been a kid himself but from the day he joined X-Com to the day the alien fortress crashed back into the sea the idea had only come up once and that was a lifetime ago and with a very different girl. Now he was going to be a dad, even if the dumb slowpoke engine blew them all to hell he was still going to be a dad, he just could not get his head round the idea.

Nabiki's wedding (not that he would call it that in her earshot) had been a fantastic success, hardly surprising since she had organised it. All he had been required to do was find the rings, turn up and answer the questions as prompted. Which was a good thing since the sight of her in her wedding dress had blown his mind to pieces. To this day most of the day was a happy blur, and the night was permanently burned into his brain, filed under 'Best Moments of Life.' Of course his father and Soun had still tried a crazy scheme to replace the woman he loved with the worlds most famous closeted lesbian jailbird but the fight that ensued had been just another icing on the cake of a perfect day.

He still remembered the day she had brought up kids. Nabiki had been talking to her elder sister Earthside and cooing over the baby. Ranma had made some flippant remark about her getting clucky and she had hit him right in the face with a sincere "Yes, I think I am." Well he had stuck with what he knew and stammered meaningless uglash until she rescued him. She had wrapped her arms around his neck, kissed him and then, with their eyes locked together, asked him in a voice barely above a whisper, "What about it stud, wanna be a dad?" He had looked into those eyes and realised he only had one answer; he whispered his agreement and was treated to a toe-curling kiss. The more he thought about it the more he knew it was the right answer, but that didn't stop him turning it over and over in his head. A dad hot damn!

Predictably there had proved to be problems with the next step but a few doses of the regenertron had fixed that and soon she had been standing there with that look. He had been teaching a morning class, had seen her standing there at the side door as she normally did, and Kami he loved it when she did, but this time her face had been a mask of confused emotions. He rushed over to her, picking out fear and happiness and love and anxiety and all sorts of other expressions from her face. He had immediately guessed what she had learned and her little smile and nod as he took her hands had clinched it. He had whiled her around the room, screaming "Yattai!" so loud they could have heard him I Nerima. T that moment he could have leapt mountains and outrun jets. He felt like the happiest man in the universe, and the thing was he still did.

It had taken days to get the smile off his face, and nobody had wanted that infectious joy to end. Mess mates had started calling him 'dad' just to see the brightening of his smile. Laura and her husband, who had beaten Nabiki and him to it by nearly six months, had teased him unceasingly but they were already lined up as godparents. Just as he and Nabiki were godparents to little Callum.

All in all Ranma was on top of the world, except that he wasn't instead he was out in the black between stars heading for Mars after one of the most uneventful trips of his life.

"Colonel could you report to the sensor deck," came a voice over the intraship tannoy, sounded like young O'Reilly, a good kid but prone to excitability. Ranma nevertheless quickly propelled himself down the corridors to the sensor suite, anything to do was good he told himself, he was wrong.

-

It took nearly an hour to make sense of what the long range sensors were picking up. In deference to Radar O'Reilley, most people would have missed the trace altogether. What they were seeing was at least one small craft on the same heading as them. The energy trail it was leaving was definitely not any vessel launched from Earth.

"Captain" Ranma said, turning to the ex-Naval Air Arm officer, "we need to get closer, damn the reaction mass we must know more."

"Aye-Aye Sir" the man replied, pissing Ranma off just a little with his damn formality.

"Call me when you've got a time to interception," Ranma ordered, heading out to rouse his Commando.

-

The call came quickly on his heels, "ETI ten minutes Colonel" the captain's voice said over the comms. Ranma resisted the urge to tell the man not to call him colonel and set about putting on his battle gear. Worst came to worst it was just another drill.

As soon as he suited up he returned to the sensor suite. His armoured state clearly alarmed more than one crew member along the way.

"What we looking at cap?" he asked as he came in the door. The captain winced and replied,

"Three ships, small single seaters, nothing we have seen before."

"Got a picture Radar?" he asked the corporal. The man quickly flicked up a blurry image of what was undeniably a set of saucers. "shit!" Ranma swore. "I think battle stations are in order," he said to the captain who nodded and set to preparing to fight the ship. "Radar, I don't want you to lose them for a second, the moment you are suited I need you to glue yourself to that screen and probe them raw." Then Ranma jogged off to the bridge, and in doing so he missed the start of the longest distance call mankind have ever made.

-

On the bridge everything was calm, all the stations were manned by space suited X-com astronauts, and the captain was ensconced in his gyro-stabilised seat. Ranma took up position in a corner as out of the way as he could manage.

"Ladies and gentlemen" the captain began over the intraship, "we will soon be engaging unknown aliens in the first ever space battle of mankind's history. Earth trusts that each man shall do his duty." Ranma almost gagged at the pomposity but the men seemed to like it so he kept stum and swallowed his sarcasm.

The captain was distracted by a private call over the comms but quickly returned to the situation at hand. As the Endeavour approached the aliens flipped end for end and came screaming in, plasma pulses leading the way.

The Endeavour took a real pasting, but gave it back in the best measure they could. Systematically the triple gauss cannons spat streams of fire at the enemy, lighting up their shields like it was Christmas.

"Track and fire independently!" the captain ordered, "Give me some feedback damn it!"

The feedback was not good, even the latest shielding technology that X-Com had rolled out was nothing close to good enough to take on three ships. Already hull breaches were being reported. On the plus side one of the enemy vessels could now be seen pin wheeling away into space apparently beyond control.

"We lost sensors Sir" reported the scanning officer, " targeting has been witched to manual"

"Shit!" Ranma swore, that was like trying to crawl across broken glass with your lips, bloody impossible. He took off for one of the weapon turrets at full tilt, figuring there was no way the current gunner could match him for perceptive skills. The ship continued to shudder as he went, hurling himself along from bulkhead to wall, bouncing along like a demented spinning top.

But he got there and he got there before the gunner had finished emptying his magazine in futile streams of rage. Ranma lifted the poor man out from the seat and clocked him with an elbow. He threw himself into the torn straps and set about locating all the controls while desperately seeking Zen-shin. The aliens meanwhile had far from given up, spotting their pursuer turned victim's lack of guidance they closed in all the more, sacrificing their frantic manoeuvring for more straight forward attack runs. Mistake.

Ranma called the other gunner and ordered him to surrender turret control to his station. Not that Ranma had a great deal of experience in a turret but the way he saw it nor did anyone else. Ranma calmly chose his moment and let fly with everything the Endeavour had, turning the second of their attackers into dissipating space trash. The third had got the message though and resumed its more conservative attack and manoeuvring mix. The fight was still desperately one sided but at least with only one opponent the Endeavour was taking a lot less damage.

A sudden shock shook the ship, from forrard, Ranma didn't bother to speculate what had just blown, the lack of command chatter said it all. Instead he fired off another stream of hyper-velocity projectiles, scoring a few hits on the enemy vessel.

"Damage control, sit rep shields and steerage" he called.

"Steerage is fine but I've only got one projector left and its only going to last for a few seconds when I fire her up before the buffers fry."

"On my mark bring her about vertical flip and fire up that shield" he ordered. "All personnel buckle up!" With that he began tracing a pattern for the alien to jump through. The bastard was too quick and too wary to hit but Ranma had a plan. At just the right moment he gave the order and used the ship like a giant flyswat. The shield blew, the hull buckled but more importantly the alien vessel went crunch too, and was now lodged in the side of the Endeavour.

Ranma guided his Alphas to the location but the little grey sectoid pilot was spread all over his seat, his cockpit having been turned into lethal projectiles by the impact. Ranma was honestly disappointed by the outcome, he had a powerful urge to punch someone, he could just tell this was going to make him late home to his wife.

Things were worse than he thought.


	2. trouble and strife the return

** Chapter 2: Troubles**

Nabiki was really really angry now. The scientists had finally rigged their antennae and dish, they were all ready to start when something blew and the room had to be evacuated. It was a long two hours before they were ready to try again.

"Colonel we have located their transponder and are ready to beam the signal" one particularly brave technician announced.

"Do it" she commanded. There was a hum and a whine, everyone winced, but no explosion.

"Vessel Endeavour this is Cydonia Base do you copy? Over," the science geek on the set called. There was a long moment of silence, then the receiver crackled into life.

"This is Endeavour reading you loud and clear. Over," responded a young man's voice, not sounding impressed in the least, more like harassed. The room of course exploded into rounds of congratulations, egg heads rejoicing at the first real deep space transmission. Somewhere a cork popped and champagne started to flow.

"I say again this is Endeavour, we read you, do you have a message? Over," the voice added. Nabiki pushed the rejoicing geek out of the way with a single finger and stole his seat.

"Affirmative," she replied, rather impressed with her tactical speak, "who am I talking to?" she asked. There was a long period of silence.

"Over?" said the voice.

"What do you mean over, you never said anything?" Nabiki replied, warning off the nearest group of celebrants with a glare.

"No you never said anything," replied the voice indignantly, "You've got to say over. Over"

"Okay Over Over. Now who are you?" Nabiki responded.

"NO!" replied the voice, "Look I really don't have time for this we're being attacked, call back when you got something to say!" OUT!"

"OI!" Nabiki commanded "You sit soldier!" she barked in her 'Colonel Ballbuster' voice. "Name and Rank Soldier!" she commanded.

"Corporal O'Reilley number-

"Forget it, just put Colonel Saotome on the radio!" she commanded.

"Can't" said Radar's voice from the other end really quietly "he just left."

"What's this about you being attacked?" she asked, suddenly concerned.

"Not yet we're not" Radar replied, "but we will be soon an I gotta get my suit on!"

"You tell me what the hell is going on there, right now!" Nabiki replied voice dropping to sub-arctic. Radar got the message.

"We found some UFO's on the long range. The captain and Ranma said we gotta chase them and now we're all going to red alert cuz we're gonna catch them and fight it out-"

"Them?" Nabiki prompted.

"Three small ones Ma'am Sir" Radar explained, "They were headed for home system so we were gonna head 'em off at the pass like"

"Who the hell trained this man?" Nabiki lamented to the now silent room. "Well corporal you'll just have to keep us updated on what's going on, right?" she ordered.

"But Sir Ma'am Ranma told me to watch the Ufos and I still ain't got my suit on!" Radar complained.

"Ma'am" interrupted a nearby technician gingerly.

"What?" she asked with a glare.

"we can patch the sensor feed through the channel" he added in a quiet rush.

-

* * *

-

So Nabiki got to see the fight through the eyes of the Endeavour's sensors. Rapidly various scientists attached themselves to more individual feeds. She saw the Endeavour beaing down on the enemy craft, saw their U-turn and saw the fight begin, and that was when the really bad feeling hit her. With the first volley the enemy craft had demonstrated a firepower that meant real trouble for the X-Com ship, and after the first reply it was clear that the Endeavour's own firepower options needed looked at.

As the damage mounted a chill started to spread through her body. Then the vessel took another big hit, lost targeting sensors and spoke no more. A deadly hush fell on the room, one by one the occupants turned to her. On every face she saw fear and uncertainty, the need for reassurance to desire to make the last few minutes go away. "Takeuchi-san" she started while rising slowly to her feet, "Correct me if I am wrong but this does not mean that the Endeavour is destroyed, what are the other options?" she finished with a steely glare at the man.

"Er, from the last readings and the direction of attack the most likely problem is that…Sensors. The Endeavour's dish acts as both sensor and signal receptor, without the dish they would be unable to modulate our carrier wave, unable to broadcast."

"And this can be fixed?" she prompted.

"Oh we'll put the dish inside, maybe have a separate backup..-

"Ridiculous" another scientist piped in, "the signal degradation through the hull would…."

Nabiki left them to it, scientist happily falling back into the realm of what they knew best. Only a few seemed to realise that they had been manipulated and most of them were happy to go along with the argument, if only to avoid airing the other, unspoken, option. Nabiki herself put one hand on her belly and whispered, "Be well Hero" and then left to deal with the new portents in her own way.

-

A Council of War was arranged, its subject the return of the alien menace. Jack and the Earthside crew were informed. Everywhere there was a rising tide of hysteria. Through it all sailed a resolute Nabiki, bringing order to the sudden chaos, calm where things had verged on panic. Outwardly calm and collected she did what she was best at, made other people do things. Inside she was in turmoil, afraid frustrated and angry all at the same time. Every time some idiot came to her with a problem she knew they could fix, but really wanted someone else to make the decision she had to resist the urge to scream abuse. She knew the staff were just being human and reaching out for reassurance but it left her feeling like she was running a kinder garden not mankind's greatest collection of scientific minds on Earth's first extra-terrestrial colony.

The base security staff were pestering her with new proposals, new defensive ideas, and she had a really hard time talking to them, the moment they spoke to her they didn't seem to talk any language she knew. After a few hours of attempting to decipher the mysterious language she told them to form a committee and talk 'soldier' to each other. She just wished the other problems were so easily fixed, but too many egos collided in the scientists to leave them to do anything alone and there was a very true saying about too many doctors not being good for patients. Being base commander had seemed like a great step when they had offered it all that time ago. The Rank increase to above Ranma had helped too, even if he did later catch up. Right now accepting this assignment seemed like her own private hell.

So Nabiki's mood got fouler, her manner harsher and everyone around her struggled to become more efficient so they didn't have to face the next stage of her temper. The hours slipped into days and still neither news nor attack came. Everywhere the base continued to hold its breath, and work like demons to prepare for renewed war. Events that would have been cause for celebration passed with only a memo. Even the opening of the cyclotron slipped by without the ceremony expected, much to the disappointment of various engineers. Nabiki inspected the first high grade synthetic Elerium, pretended to be impressed and passed the machinery for full production, but that was it. Almost overnight emergency turrets were erected, armed with massive laser cannons and a small fleet of interceptors was altered for space to fly patrols.

It was in the middle of this that Nabiki's pregnancy started going wrong. It may have been the stress, or the constant moving from meeting to meeting, or even that she wasn't eating properly, or even something else, but whatever it was she got sick. The doctors confined her immediately to a regeneration tank and ran a huge series of tests. Isolated in the tank all Nabiki could hear were odd murmurs and concerned whispers. She had a microphone but nobody seemed to be listening to its feed. Without information panic threatened but Nabiki wasn't abouit to let the egg heads know that. Instead she struggled over to the side of the tank and apparently calmly knocked on the surface. A pair of doctors turned to her looking surprised, she held up her hand miming a phone, they looked at each other and scrambled for a console.

"Sorry Ma'am" the doc who got there first apologised, " the speaker was turned off."

"Won't happen again Ma'am" the other added.

"I know it won't" Nabiki threatened, "Now you are going to tell me what's going on."

"Er yes Ma'am" the first speaker replied.

"Truth is Ma'am we don't rightly know" supplied the second.

"Then you will tell me what you do know" she informed them.

"Yes Ma'am" said the first, belting his companion on the arm. "You and the baby are both fine!" he asserted. "In fact you're both better than fine," he added.

"Explain," she commanded coolly.

"Er the scan shows unusual brain activity Ma'am" he replied, "my guess is the kid has reacted to something and his mind has developed faster than expected."

"Gos," she swore "he's been helping me check on the baby."

"That would be Colonel Gosunkugi?" the second asked. Nabiki didn't reply, the first doc took the hint and slapped his companion.

"Of course it is dimwit" he hissed

"But he's like really creepy" the second said, only to get hit again.

"Shh, idiot the speaker is still on!"

"Uh guys" Nabiki began tentatively, "Are you sure you're doctors?"

"Oh sure we are, well mostly, I kinda got kicked out of my internship for the whole bride of Frankenstein thing but that's all in the past."

"Yeah, we're much better now Ma'am" added the second one. "I'm sure this time we could actually build a real girlfriend"

"You think?" asked the first in a goofy voice.

"Kami it's the revenge of the stooges" Nabiki whispered, tuning out the rapidly heating argument over blond or brunette. But they had come through, her baby was fine and that was all that really mattered. Still this would have been a really good time for Ranma to be here, even if it was only so she could order him to hit both the gurning fools.

-

Nabiki stayed in the tank for the whole next day, it was warm and cosy and she sort of liked it, besides the gunk did wonders for her skin, and stretch marks had to be dealt with somehow. Admittedly she was also catching up on a lot of lost sleep, whatever music they had playing in the tank just seemed to have that effect on her.

While sleeping she had several very lurid dreams. The first was way beyond pornographic, involving Ranma, a riding crop and a lot of warm chocolate sauce. When she came to she was genuinely relieved, a weight seemed to have lifted from her mind and she felt more relaxed than she had in days. She also dictated a note to one of the slapheads to remind her to order some high riding boots and a crop for 'compatibility tests'. As she drifted back to sleep the smile of anticipation on her face was positively wicked.

The second dream turned out to be a new episode in the torture of her baby sister. Nabiki still could not believe the gall of the girl, letting their fathers put her in that ugly meringue of a wedding dress and try to pass the nutter off as her. Still seeing her running off only wearing the bustier part, stockings, a garter belt and a load of sacred oil had been fairly amusing. Even more so when the deluded girl's wannabe lovers had been standing in her way.

-

_"My beauteous Akane you run to my arms. You are radiant, you are half-naked? And slippy! All my dreams come true at once, come Sasuke shall prepare the cheese whiz."_

_"Back off pervert" whack "I'm not like that"_

_"Of course she isn't, she's with me. Isn't that right my big strong officer?"_

_"Yuka? NOOOOOOO!"_

_Cue fleeing Akane, followed by two adherents, one (cheese whiz carrying) ninja and a swarm of paparazzi. And her over-amorous female parole officer._

-

This latest plan promised to be a doozy and Nabiki actually woke herself up laughing so hard. This time she made the techie note down "panty parachute" and "dissolving dress." The look she got from the man in question seemed to doubt her sanity but the look she expected to see on Akane's face would make it worth it.

Her third dream was much more surreal, involving a cloying warmth and being curled up somewhere soft and wet. At first she just thought she was in the tank with the lights out and was just about ready to rip some poor techie's spine clear of his body, verbally speaking of course, when she heard the heartbeat. The noise rapidly drove all other thoughts away. She could hear her own heartbeat, strong and loud and alongside it was another; only this seemed to be coming from all around her. Nabiki may have been comparatively new to this psychic stuff but she quickly joined the dots. She was dreaming that she was her kid. The loud heartbeat was really her own, and the cloying soft cover was her belly. Her joy lit up like a candle and was magnified out of all scope when she felt another mind sharing it.

When she woke up again she was smiling even wider than before, only this smile was that of a mother who has just been granted a very special gift by hr child. As Nabiki lay there floating in the tank she just knew Ranma would be back soon. There was simply no way he would miss out on this.

-

* * *

- 

Entering Earth's solar system at that very moment was the limping Endeavour. From outside the damage looked catastrophic. The front windows were smashed, the bridge completely open to the void. A broad swath had been taken out of the port side of the ship, culminating in a host of trailing wires and scrap that followed tendril-like behind the ship. And all over her were more craters, scorch marks and missing plates. Nearly the only thing that seemed to be intact were the engine flares that burned a steady bright orange from all but one of their thrusters.

If the outside was bad the interior sucked. In an effort to lower mass to drive ratios most of the interior panelling had been discarded, along with all the niceties that could be spared. The bunks, the kitchen, the desks, all of it. Life support had been stripped down to an oxygen and a water reclaimer, and no attempt to restore pressure had been made except for in the surgery, which also doubled as the only washing facilities on the ship. Even though water had been a luxury since everyone was bottled up in their suits since the attack, that one concession had been had in the interests of morale, and not turning up smelling like they had spent the last two weeks stewing in their own sweat. All internal comms had failed so the ship had to be run over short wave suit comms and that in turn meant that all idle chatter had been stopped.

"This bites!" Ranma swore, writing on a pad for his companion. "And you can guess who they are gonna blame when we get back!" he added

"How much does a one of a kind deep space explorer cost anyway" the recently promoted Captain Porter wrote, pulling a big grin to emphasise his point.

"Not my fault!" Ranma wrote, pressing hard. Porter smiled back,

"So who did crash the ship into the alien?" he wrote, drawing a quick picture of the collision. Ranma just sulked. A small alarm went off in his suit and a new display flashed up on his HUD.

"Gotta go refill" he wrote, "see ya in ten" he added. Porter just gave him a mocking salute and went back to sketching the crash and miming explosions.

"Bastard" Ranma muttered to himself.


	3. Fighting Talk

**Chapter 3: Fighting Talk.**

The sun was shining down on Nerima, in fact it was beating down. The Neriman district had been transformed into an oven. Through the heat haze a couple could be seen walking down the sticky road. The man had a baby attached in a front-carrier and was holding the woman's hand. He was dressed in a cut off red silk shirt that had seen better days and some black and surf shorts. She wore a light white cotton shirt tied at the waist and some very short cut off denim hot-pants. Both wore beach sandals and shades. The baby was wearing a white hat and quite happily dozing as they walked.

Every so often one or the other would glance at the baby, parental care shining in their faces.

"Its good to breathe fresh air again," Ranma said, taking a deep breath. Nabiki looked at him quizzically, "Okay non-recycled air" he amended. She smiled at him and squeezed his hand. He leant in for a kiss. At that moment a stray wind caught some petals from an overhanging cherry blossom tree and sprinkled them over the pair.

"I wish we had a camera" Ranma said wistfully, looking up into the spray. When he looked back Nabiki was still holding his hands and smiling.

"Enough stalling Saotome!" Nabiki said "That's the third tree you've stopped us under. I am impressed with the thoughtfulness it is not going to get you out of meeting your mother."

After much searching Nabiki had finally located Ranma's mother, only to find that she had never left Nerima. She had however had her marriage annulled on grounds of abandonment and reverted to her maiden name. Ranma had argued that there was no point in doing anything more since the woman had obviously given up on her family. But Nabiki, now a mother herself, had overruled him, inable to comprehend that any woman would not want to know what became of her child.

So here they were walking through the late summer heat, headed for the Sulu household. He was still unsure of the whole idea and quietly his doubts were starting to affect his wife. However neither of them were quitters and so they pushed on through the heat. They had left their bags at the hotel and walked the short distance to the quiet traditional area that Sulu Nodoka lived. The houses were all well separated, whitewashed and red tiled in the traditional manner, each garden meticulously kept. Even the roads here were paved rather than tarmac, and interrupted every so often by ornamental streams. Ranma thought it looked 'kinda nice,' but Nabiki smelt old money.

They arrived at the Sulu household to see a fairly huge house. It was set on a slight rise, within its own walled compound. In front of the house there was an ornamental pond, a stone lantern and a sculpted sakura tree. The house itself was only two floors but sprawled over quite an area. It was easily the largest complex in the area. Nabiki looked at Ranma, he looked back and they both whistled.

There was a bell to ring so they rang and waited. A little time later a woman dressed in gardening gear came around the house. She was still carrying a trowel and had her ruddy hair tied up in a utilitarian bun. She pressed a button the other side of the iron gate and it slid open.

"Konichiwa," she woman said bowing respectfully to the young family in front of her. "How may I help you?"

"I'm Saotom-" Ranma started but Nabiki interrupted him.

"WE're looking for Sulu Nodoka is she home?" Nabiki said as polietely as she could.

"May I ask what business you have with her?" the woman replied, a trace of steel in her voice. This time Nabiki only had to glance at Ranma to make him defer to her.

"It is a very private matter concerning her family" Nabiki said, attempting to convey that the matter was serious.

"Very well, won't you please come in Mr and Mrs…" the 'gardener prompted.

"Saotome" Ranma said before Nabiki could dissemble. The woman stopped cold. Slowly she turned to them.

"Excuse me but would that make one of you the child of Saotome Genma?" she asked coldly. This time Nabiki stopped him by pinching his hand.

"Perhaps we could continue this inside?" she prompted.

"Of Course" the woman replied, formally and far from friendlily. Together they all walked up to the house, changed their shoes for some slippers from the rack and went into the sitting room.

The room was traditional in the extreme; spartan to the point of emptiness it contained little ornament, a few small wall hangings and a pair of three tiered sword racks. There were no chairs, and the table was old and low. The floor was traditional tatami and the walls high quality traditional shoji. Nabiki was getting a very bad feeling about this. When the woman excused herself and left she pulled Ranma's ear over to her face.

"Be careful Ranma, we are definitely missing something," she said. His reaction was immediate. All the subtle signals he gave off switched from open and friendly to wary and closed. Calmly he handed the baby sling to Nabiki. At the same moment one of the doors slid back to reveal a tall handsome man. He was wearing army issue combat pants and high combat boots. His Black muscle shirt revealed an impressive physique and his dark hair was tied back with a folded white bandanna.

"Konichiwa" he said in a rather unfriendly tone. "May I ask what it is you have done to upset my mother?"

"Your Mother?" Nabiki said, joining the dots.

"Yes my mother Sulu Nodoka," the man replied even less friendly. He was also, Ranma noted, positioning himself next to the sword rack.

"I assure you we have not come here to offend her in any way," Nabiki said, trying to calm the situation down, and at the same time trying to work out who the heck this man really was. "Perhaps some introductions are in order?" she suggested.

"Very well," the man replied, not relaxing a bit, "My name is Sulu Ranma, welcome to my mother's home." Ranma made no outward response but knowing him this only made Nabiki worry more.

"Forgive me Sulu-san" she said "but may I ask how exactly you came to be of that name?" The man put on a questioning look, obviously not missing their failure to introduce themselves.

"The normal way I suppose," he said, smiling a little, "you seem to have some experience in the matter," he finished nodding at the baby.

"Who is your father?" Ranma asked in a quiet, deadly voice.

"And why should I tell you anything more?" the man claiming to be Ranma said, his own voice dropping to threatening tones. Nabiki for her part just tensed and readied herself to get her and the baby well clear of what was likely to be a very messy encounter.

"Ranma," admonished a voice from the other side of the room, the same direction Nodoka had left in. Indeed the woman in question had returned, this time dressed in a formal looking very expensive kimono. "I have invited these people into our home!"

"Gomen mother," the man replied "I just don't like people talking that way, especially strangers!"

"Gomen naasai" Nabiki said bowing towards the woman, "we have been rude and I apologise, but I hope that you will soon appreciate the reasons why." At the same time she reached out a hand and placed her fingertips on Ranma's arm. He calmed, but only a little. Nabiki in turn waited for the Sulus to decide whether or not they would sit.

Nodoka, predictably, led the way and sat down across the table from Nabiki, her 'son' soon followed suit, opposite Ranma. No sooner had they all settled in when a portly maid appeared carrying a tray of tea things. Nabiki increased her grip on Ranma and kept him quiet. Either that or he was to busy exchanging death glares with the other man.

Nodoka and Nabiki both pretended not to notice. As form demanded the host served tea, and was served in return, and then the two ladies exchanged small talk about the weather. Finally, when all forms had been adhered to, and Ranma had just about given up staring and decided to kill the faking puke opposite Nodoka spoke.

"Forgive me for not introducing myself earlier but there are certain people who I would rather not associate myself with, legacies of my former husband."

"So he managed to screw your life up too" Ranma said, without separating from his death glare, "Join the club."

"With respect young man I believe I was a member of that club long before you" Nodoka replied, but Nabiki was relieved to notice she did so none too harshly. Obviously running down Genma was a good ice-breaker around here.

"Not by as long as you might think in his case Sulu-san" Nabiki disagreed, bringing the attention back to her. Nodoka wordlessly prompted her to go on. "My husband here is Genma's son" Nabiki said, but she really wasn't expecting the reaction she got. Nodoka went white as a sheet and the imposter smiled evilly.

"I pity you!" spat the boy claiming to be Ranma.

"You are Saotome Ranma?" Nodoka asked the young man in question, barely above a whisper.

"Hai I am" Ranma said with a smug grin, "The real Saotome Ranma" he asserted, challenge written all over his face.

"Fine by me buttnugget" the other Ranma said, and Nabiki had to grab Ranma's arm hard to stop him killing the fool there and then.

"I take it there is more to this story than we know" asked Nabiki to Nodoka, trying to ignore the fake Ranma's smug grin.

"Indeed so it would seem" replied Nodoka, "more than any of us knew."

"Perhaps we might help each other fill in the missing information?" Nabiki suggested, internally wondering if she could still get what she wanted after Ranma killed the smirking puke across the table. Nodoka sat down her cup and nodded.

" That would seem wise," she replied. "Why don't you go out to the garden Ranma?" she asked, causing both men to look at her somewhat surprised. When they looked back at each other they were both smiling.

"Hai Sulu-san" Saotome Ranma said at the same time his imposter agreed. Nabiki was about to stop them when she decided against it, Ranma really did deserve to kick some ass and that git sure had it coming.

"Now Saotome-san" Nodoka started, encouraged by Nabiki's affirmative nod "why don't we start at the beginning."

-

* * *

-

Outside things were progressing somewhat less friendlily. The two Ranma's had separated and were eyeing each other side on across a patch of grassy lawn. For a while they circled in silence then one spoke.

"So you know how to fight?" Colonel Saotome asked the other.

"Better than you punk!" the man replied. Ranma took up a stance, threw up his hands and beckoned the man with all his fingers.

"Bring it on ass-wipe!" the colonel taunted. And the other complied.

To say that Saotome Ranma was shocked was a bit of an understatement, his opponent was a lot better than he had given him credit for. He was also using some very serious moves. This was not going to be a friendly spar. An axe kick just missed him and tore a chunk out of the lawn where it landed. The man's punches were cracking the air itself.

"Shouldn't have come back punk!" the impostor taunted. Throwing a rapid series of deadly combos at the pig tailed hero. Ranma was forced to dodge and dodge hard, rapidly abandoning plans to go easy on the guy because he was so limited.

Ranma struck back, a series of quick fire punches, aimed to distract, and a feinted kick to gain position. The other Ranma saw the trap though and quickly backed out, covering his own move with a feighned uppercut.

Ranma took the match to the air, and the man followed suit, though not nearly as ably as the original. With the added advantage Ranma quickly forced the fake onto the defensive, but still neither had landed a blow.

The fake, for his part was starting to really worry, this son of Genma was a lot better than he had expected. The easy victory over the snivelling thief had not appeared, instead he found himself facing a master of the lethal arts, who was actually threatening to get lucky.

For a moment the two broke off fighting, both circling for position on the ground, pacing like panthers eying a rival for the pack leadership. Then the fake noticed something that made his blood run cold. His opponent was hardly breathing any harder than when they started. Even in this heat the shorter man was pulling off his acrobatic mishmash of styles without significant effort.

That fact alone made Sulu's mind up. He went straight in for a kill move, one from the sealed art of the Yammisken. With lightening speed he lashed out his leg in a 'gate-opener' and followed through with a claw going straight for Ranma's heart.

If it hadn't been a claw he might have succeeded but unfortunately for him Ranma's training took over. Too many times the four piercing claws of the alien chryssalid had taken the lives of his comrades. His reaction was hardwired.

With unhuman speed Ranma twisted his torso aside, all but turning his back on the fake. His right arm caught the offending arm and pulled, twisting. At the same time the pull spun him back on an opposite circle and brought him back lashing out a knife edge hand to snap the incoming forearm. His elbow smashed into the attackers face, breaking bone, splitting flesh and jarring his neck His right hand continued the twist, throwing the fake over his own shattered forearm. Fortunately for all concerned Ranma halted the ace kick follow up before it crushed the fallen form's skull.

Ranma took a step back, heart going at a ferocious rate. Then turned to the house and called for help, before dropping to the man's form to try and save his life.

-

* * *

-

Inside Nodoka and Nabiki were just laughing over one of the younger woman's tales of Ranma's attempts at being romantic when they heard the shout. They had talked for what seemed like hours and a real friendship was fast growing between them. Nodoka had even moved around the table and helped Nabiki when her child had demanded fed. Whatever else happened this child had a new grandmother. Therefore when they heard Ranma's call their first reaction was real shock, they had both forgotten about the two boys.

Nabiki gathered up her baby and ran for the door only a single step behind Nodoka, dread filling her body.


	4. Its a hard knock life for

**Chapter 4 it's a hard knock life.**

Nabiki, Ranma, their baby and Nodoka were sitting in a waiting room at the local hospital. The fake Ranma, who Nabiki had taken to calling Ryu, had been taken into the ER some minutes ago and they had heard little word since. Nodoka was obviously in some distress but this was being contained by Nabiki. Ranma meanwhile was running the fight through in his head, wondering how Ryu had got so close in the first place.

"Fighting has been his life," Nodoka said "He will be devasted to have been beaten."

"In fairness to him Ranma may be one of the world's best fighters" Nabiki supplied "and not many people could have made him push back that hard."

"Small consolation if he can ever fight again," Nodoka retorted. "What were you two thinking trying to kill each other like that?" she demanded from Ranma, anger flashing n her eyes.

"It wasn't my idea" Ranma replied, "I was only gonna kick his ass. And nobody can say he didn't deserve that!"

"But did he deserve to be crippled for life?" the mother retorted with venom.

"Truthfully?" Ranma asked "Yes he probably did" he finished, despite Nabiki's shushing motions. Nodoka in her turn was struck dumb. "From his very first punch he was trying to do me serious injury. And the last combo he threw would have killed most people I know! So yes he deserved to get hurt, maimed was maybe a little too much but if so not by far." Ranma had stood up and was facing Nodoka.

"I don't know about you but when people try to kill me I tend to make sure they ain't gonna try again." He asserted. "An I ain't gonna apologise for kicking his dumb ass!" Nodoka in turn was now sat open mouthed starting at Ranma, tears not far away.

"Sulu-san" Nabiki interrupted, "Ranma may be many things but he is not a bully nor does he lack honour in any way I have ever seen. He may not be the most tactful of people but I think that somewhere you already know that he has a point." Nabiki stood up to stand next to her husband. Then she bowed, "I will however apologise to you, we never intended to bring hurt to you or your family. Gomen!" Then she took her husband by the hand and moved to lead him away.

"Wait!" cried Nodoka "Don't leave." The small family stopped and turned back to her. "You are right I do know that my son has quite a temper and I can well believe that-"

"You don't need to say it Sulu-san" Nabiki interrupted, recognising the woman's desperate need not to be alone. She led Ranma back to their seats and cautiously wrapped an arm around the traditional woman. It may have been practically indecent by Japanese standards but Nabiki knew enough about people to know it was exactly what the older woman needed.

No sooner had she done it than Nodoka collapsed into her arms, letting the tears flow. The other Japanese in the waiting room were quickly discouraged from staring by the faithful watchdog by their side. One old woman ventured as far as to tut, once and only once, the low growl coming from Ranma helped her decide that it really was none of her business after all.

At length a doctor reappeared. He was wearing the green scrubs of an ER doctor and had his mask pulled down. He also looked rather pleased with himself. "We have saved the arm" he announced "using some of the latest techniques from Fraser Medicorp we have managed to restore feeling in the whole limb and are confident for a majority recovery."

"What of his jaw and spinal injuries?" Nabiki asked, hiding a grin at the mention of the X-Com spin-off company.

"The jaw should be fine, he will lose some teeth and will need wiring to hold it in place while the bone knits" the doctor explained, and because everyone was looking at him they missed Ranma's small smile. "As to the spinal injuries the radiographers have highlighted some concerning shadows on the films but thus far everything seems to be fine. If it hadn't been for the skill of the paramedics I really don't think we would be looking at so even an outcome," he added. Ranma restrained the urge to scoff, the technicians in question had been grass green and nearly puked when they saw the mangled man on the grass. It had been him who orchestrate the man's stabilisation and him who had ensured that no further damage had been done to the neck. The technicians had even forgotten to bring a neck brace from the ambulance.

"Can I see him?" Nodoka asked. The doctor nodded in reply but added the caution that the man was under a lot of sedation and might not realise that she was there.

Nevertheless Nodoka went to him, leaving Ranma and Nabiki behind in the waiting room. She shuffled over next to him and laid her head on his shoulder, at the same time wrapping an arm around the baby. "She sure cares a lot for him doesn't she?" Ranma observed.

"When he turned up claiming to be you she was so very happy." Nabiki began to explain. "The two of them went to see Genma together at the Tendo-ke. He did his normal snivelling bit and hid as a Panda, but my dad managed to tell her that Genma was back, without you and that the person she thought was her son wasn't. As you can magine she was very hurt indeed. To cut a long story short she confronted Ryu and his fiancée, he got dumped and thrown out. It was only later after Ryu had kicked Genma's fat panda ass for the other part of his school that he came back to see her. She naturally enough didn't want to have anything to do with him but he gave her the one thing she really wanted, news of her son.

"Under duress Genma had admitted that he thought you were dead. Ryu went to see your mum, despite the hurt her scorn was going to do hi, because he believed she had a right to know. As he was leaving after telling what he knew she stopped him. They talked some more. He was there for her when she cut off her husband and there for her in the years since. While you have been off galivanting around saving the world the two of them become friends and then family." Nabiki knew that she could have put it more gently than that but she really wanted Ranma to ease up on Ryu and give his mother a chance.

"But why's he still calling himself Ranma?" he asked her, hiding the sudden feeling of guilt behind peevishness.

"Because she asked him to," Nabiki replied. "His own name was fairly tarnished from what he did to 'rebuild' his father's school, and the two of them had much better memories of him as Ranma."

"Still sorta seems underhanded ya know," Ranma replied. "Sorta like she got a replacement"

"She sort of did Ranma" she asserted, "They both sort of thought you were dead, and she needed her son back as much as he needed a parent"

"I still ain't gonna feel sorry fer him" Ranma retorted, "even if he was nice to my mum then he's still an ass, just slightly less of one than I thought."

"Than we thought Ranma," she argued, "Than we thought. And yes I agree he is still an ass, but hey maybe getting his smug face smashed will help" she added with an evil smile. He smiled back and kissed her.

"So we still haveta go see your pops?" he asked after the kiss broke.

"Seems sort of unfair to stop him seeing his grand-daughter don't you think?" she replied. Ranma didn't comment, so she punched him in the gut lightly.

"Fine, fine" he replied smiling "but don't blame me if the idiot duo try some stupid scheme again."

"Ranma, we are married and have a child. What could they possibly try now?" she asked in an exasperated voice.

"I don't know" he replied "but I wouldn't bet against them trying something."

"They bloody well better not" she retorted snuggling back into his arms.

-

The young family waited for Nodoka to come back and then walked the tearing woman home. Nabiki did her best to comfort the older woman, but the woman was once again putting on the traditional mask, or at least trying to. Once they got back to the Sulu mansion they all sat down in the tea room again and once more the maid served tea.

It was only then that Nodka revealed the doctor's prognosis. The news was not good, what the doctors called full recovery was hardly full. After a lengthy time in a neck brace Ryu would regain use of his limbs, would be able to talk again and even eat solid foods. But his arm would never regain the strength that it had had, his teeth would have to be replaced with false ones and his neck would be prone to further damage for years to come. Simply put he would never be the man he was, and would forever bear permanent reminders of the confrontation.

Nodoka had invited them to stay but they had had to beg off because Kasumi was expecting them at the Tendo-ke.

-

* * *

-

"So you never even considered calling in a marker from Jack" Nabiki asked. They were once again walking down the pavement headed for her family home. The baby was happily once again slung in front of Ranma and looking around at the vast open spaces that she had never seen before two days ago and enjoying the sound of her father's heartbeat. "Even if he had been a paraplegic?" she asked.

"No" Ranma replied, "Much better men than him have suffered much worse injuries than that and we haven't helped them. The fact that he made me do it doesn't earn him any special consideration, quite the opposite I felt like telling them not to use the damn regeneration goo cuz the puke hadn't done a damn thing to earn it."

"oooh owch!" Nabiki replied, "You really don't like him very much."

"Don't really see any reason I should," he replied, "He's Nodoka's friend not mine"

"So this isn't some Oediple jealousy thing going on then?" he asked till smiling.

"I have no idea what you mean" Ranma replied, "But if you mean am I jealous of his relationship with Nodoka then you are wrong." Now Nabiki ws surprise, he seemed very sincere.

"Ranma" she said pulling him to a stop, "I think you need to explain that a bit more."

"Nabs" her started in a quiet, sincere voice, "I love you. You and little Kimiko are my universe. Nothing in all existence could make me send either of you away under the care of an asshole like Genma." Nabiki nodded urging him to go on, "She may not have done all that shit to me herself but she sure as hell didn't stop it happening either."

"So that's it, no second chances, the two of you are slit for good?" Nabiki asked looking for some leeway.

"Nabs, I know you feel bad about losing your mum but this really isn't the same. Everythng I know about Kimiko tells me she was little short of wonderful, Nodoka ain't even close. I like the way the two of you have become friends, I like the way she seems to care about our child but if she so much as ventures an opinion on how we should bring her up…."

"You really are serious about this" Nabiki asked. He nodded. "Fine, I won't argue with you, but I do hope you give her a chance sometime."

"Maybe" Ranma conceded "but only cuz you asked."

Then they were standing in front of the Tendo-ke and it was time for their war aces again. They had already called the Onos and they would be inside gathering intel but this still seemed like a bum mission to Ranma. The couple looked at each other, took a deep breath and pushed the gate open. No sooner had they stepped into the yard than they heard the sound of fighting coming from around the back. Ranma handed Nabiki the baby and motioned for her to wait there before sneaking off to take a look.

In the back yard he was surprised to see a full scale slugging match going on. His father, pandafied as he was, was bouncing around the garden trying to fight off a younger man wielding a large red brolly. Fortunately for everyone concerned Ranma quickly picked up that neither of them was taking the fight to the same sort of levels that Ryu and he had played at.

"Curse you Saotome Genma, Because of you I have seen Hell!" the umbrella wielding, bandanna man shouted. Then he pulled off a stunt Ranma hadn't seen in years. He thrust his fingers into the ground and cried something in Chinese about exploding earth and made the ground around him erupt. Ranma was intrigued, he hadn't seen anyone perform that move since before Xian died, and as far as he understood it no male was allowed to know it. Genma obviously wasn't as aware of its capabilities as Ranma and was blinded by the blast. This allowed the other man to connect solidly with his brolly and knock the panda into the compound wall, hard.

Ryoga allowed himself a satisfying smirk of victory as he once again eat the fool who whelped that devil Saotome and was just thrusting his hands into the air I celebration when he realised that for once the applause wasn't all in his head. He turned and spotted a casually dressed young man, definitely a fighter from his build, standing at the corner of the house, clapping.

"Good distance and a nice follow through" the pig-tailed stranger said. Ryoga nodded accepting the well deserved praise. "but may I ask where you learnt the rock technique?" Ryoga gave it some thought and decided there was no harm in telling this fan a few things.

"I learnt it from a woman I met while on a trip to China" he boasted. "It is one of the most fearsome techniques of the Joketsu"

"What was the name of this woman" the 'fan' asked. Again Ryoga saw little reason to deny the poor man the information. He could hardly help not having been able to go on such long training trips as he himself had.

"She was Cologne, Matriach of the Chinese Amazons" Ryoga replied. "And I am Hibiki Ryoga, champion of the Hibiki school." He announced.

"Hibiki Ryoga?" the other said quizzically, "where have I heard that name before?" Ryoga was suddenly becoming wary, he had assumed the man had sought him out after hearing tales of his prowess. "Did you go to Tomobiki for boys" the new arrival asked. That clinched it for Ryoga, the mention of the school, the pigtail, the cocky smile. "Saotome Ranma prepare to die!" Ryoga screamed and hurled himself at the bane of his existence.

Nabiki hear the conversation start and had just about reached her man when she heard the Hibiki guy shout. She resist the urge to out her head in her hands and groan, but only just. She did however catch her husband's apologetic expression before he dodged away leading the attacker deeper into the garden.

Ryoga for his part followed his victim's gaze to the side and saw the beautiful woman standing there in the tight white shirt, this of course caused him to fumble his attack and fall sprawling onto the grass. Her laugh was like nails driven into his heart, another rejection that was all Ranma's fault.

He spun chasing the smirking idiot who dared to show his face after all these years, no doubt in an attempt to once again ruin his life. The anger welled up and he followed in a beserk fury, swinging and destroying as he went. All the while the pig-tailed demon in human form laughed and taunted him, bounding around just out of his reach.

"Stand still you demented pin ball!" Ryoga commanded, and then was completely thrown off his stride when the bastard actually complied.

Ranma was having a great time. All his happy childhood memories of the bread feud and the ridiculous way he used to lead this guy to school were flooding back. Sure the guy was fairly brilliant in terms of martial arts but he just did not have the killer edge that Ryu had had. His anger also seemed to be clouding his ability. In short Ranma was fairly conident the guy wouldn't be able to land a hit as long as he kept him angry.

"Hey Nabs, you got a sandwich in the bag I'm kinda hungry" he called. Nabiki for her part just shook her head and smiled.

"When you're through playing I'll be inside talking to my dad" she called, heading into the building.


	5. Revenge of the childish

**Chapter 5: Revenge of the toddlers.**

Ranma only stayed still for a few seconds. Just long enough to demonstrate hs ability to dodge on the spot. Then he leapt off, laughing as he went. Flipping end over end he managed to dodge

Ranma and Ryoga went round and round the garden with increasing speed. Ranma kept up his happy taunting while Ryoga just fumed and followed. Still Ranma was managing to dodge every blow Ryoga swung, admittedly he was also having to use every misdirection technique he knew but there was little argument over his dominance. As far as he was concerned this was just two old friends replaying old times. Of course Ryoga was having no fun at all. Firmly convinced that Ranma had merely returned to torment him he was unable to work out why he couldn't swat the bug.

"Hey Ryoga what ya been up to all these years?" Ranma asked with a friendly smile.

"As if you don't know you bastard," Ryoga shouted back, "You've been watching me ever since you ran out on our man to man fight, haven't you! Laughing at all the things that have gone wrong. Telling people lies and turning them against me. It's because of you I've seen HELL!" he finished, shouting and throwing at the same time.

The umbrella opened and span towards Ranma. He leapt aside, twisting his body through a near impossible angle to avoid the sharp edges. "Hey man watch out you might've hurt someone with that!" Ranma cried, ducking under the return. Ryoga just growled all the louder. After the brolly came the bandannas, and after that he took to swinging his own belt around. The scenery suffered something fierce, as did the panda's rear when a stray bandanna impaled it where the sun never shone.

This in turn led to the odd sight of a bouncing Ranma being chased by a furious Ryoga who in turn was being chased by a furious, hopping panda. Ranma quickly caught on and took to chasing the panda. Every time he caught up he would kick the panda in the rear end, making him howl. Eventually the Panda had enough of running and turned to confront his tormentor. Ranma dodged, Genma hit Ryoga instead and then the two of them went at it hard. Ranma in turn found a nice seat in the (somewhat worse for the wear) tree.

Then a toddler came running out into the garden, giggling with joy, and completely oblivious to the brawling combatants. Ranma saw the child and hurled himself from the tree to her rescue. He stopped Genma with a hefty left hook, and firmly planted his right foot in Ryoga's gut. In return he got a punch in the face and a knee in the nuts. The toddler in question stopped, looked up at the oddly contorted trio, smiled and ducked under the arch formed by Ranma and Ryoga, then continued to the pond and its shell-shocked fish.

Ranma saw what was happening, jumped back and grabbed the girl before she fell in. Behind him the other two finished their attacks and knocked each other flat. Tofu came running out of the building seconds later. When he saw the still crosseyed Ranma hlding his daughter he let out a big sigh of relief. "Thank you Saotome-san" he said, taking the happily burbling child from her perch. Of course by that point the kid had Ranma's pigtail firmly clenched in its hands and Ranma came along for the ride.

"Papa what's ths?" she asked, yanking the pig-tail again. Ranma le out a strangled 'urk' and Tofu fnally realised what she had hold of.

"Now now Tomo-chan, put the nice man's hair down and say sorry" he chided.

"No" she replied smiling.

"Tomo!"

"No!" she said with a bigger smile

"Tomo"

"NO!" she said finally letting go.

Tofu turned to Ranma, "Just think in two years this could be you" he said.

"Bully!" Ranma said, nursing his bruised scalp.

-

* * *

- 

When Ranma came inside he found Tofu chasing the girl around as she was again shouting her new favourite word.

"No" she screamed giggling and ducking under the table.

"No" she screamed crawling behind the sofa.

"No" she shouted pushing her way between Soun's legs, hitting him somewhere painful on the way.

"No" she shouted bouncing on Genma's belly and winding him.

"No she said almost running into Nabiki but stopping at the last moment. Her auntie took the opportunity and went in for the dreaded raspberry belly torture.

As Nabiki sat back up she caught Ranma looking at her with a smile on his face. She brushed her hair back behind her ear and gave him a big smile back.

-

* * *

-

Dinner was served a little later at the enlarged family table. Ranma found himself sitting between his wife and Tofu, who in turn had his daughter restrained on his lap. Opposite sat Akane and Ryoga, whose faces were a study of opposites. Akane, for some reason blaming him for her recent problems, had a thundercloud for a face and Ryoga, sat next to divinity herself was all smiles and goofiness. Soun was pulling faces at both children when he thought nobody was watching and Genma-panda was acting as a furry chew toy for baby Kimiko.

"So what exactly is lover boy doing here?" Ranma asked, nodding at the oblivious Ryoga. The table went noticeably silent.

"I smell a rat" said Nabiki quietly, "now who's going to volunteer to spill the beans, or do I have to ask again."

Soun looked at Genma, Genma looked at Soun then they both blurted out unintelligible rubbish. Nabiki held up a hand and the both of them shut up. Akane naturally chose this point to explode.

"Ranma, How dare you make my sister threaten my dad and yours!" she shouted. The couple looked at each other and shrugged.

"You care to tell me exactly how you figure that onichan?" Nabiki asked, amused.

"It's always his fault. He's the pervert that seduced my sister, stole my wedding, drove all those girls off men so they became perverts like him and-" As she paused to take a breath Nabiki held up her hand again.

"I think we get the idea," Nabiki said "But back to the matter at hand. Errm Genma your go, what's the plot?" Akane was left feeling ignored and rather silly. Genma was for his own part, sweating under Nabiki's silent scrutiny. Finally he buckled.

"It was a joke really, nothing serious a prank. Isn't that right Soun ol buddy" he blurted out.

"Yes a prank," Soun agreed "we never even really were going to follow through on it were we Genma?"

"No of course not!" Genma agreed. "So no harm done eh?"

"Yes no harm done," Soun agreed "all forgotten eh?"

"Not quite" Nabiki interrupted speaking very slowly. "Now let me guess. Even after all this time the two of you hatched some stunningly stupid plan to split me and my husband apart and supplant me with my younger sister?"

"He IS my fiancé" Aknae argued. Ranma and Nabiki looked at her with such venom that even she got the message to shut her overactive mouth.

"Now let me fill in some of the details; Ryoga here is a fighter of some skill, right?" the duo nodded, "and he has a beef against Ranma. So he's here to challenge Ranma right?" again they nodded. "At some time during the fight one or the other of you was going to distract him with something… probably Akane in some sort of skimpy outfit" now the pair were looking genuinely scared. Ranma on the other hand was looking increasingly angry. "So Ryoga wins" Ranma scoffed "and you force him to divorce me and then set him up with Akane?" the duo finally caught on that answering really wasn't helping and started shaking their heads frantically. Ranma was growling and Akane looking smug.

"Two problems, one from what saw of this Ryoga he couldn't beat Ranma if my husband was tied to a post blindfolded and second you would need something a lot more distracting than my tomboyish sister to put him of hs game" Nabiki said, wiping Akane's smile right off her face. "Now Ranma, yu have something to say."

"I. Am. Going. To. Hurt. You. Both." Ranma said, slowly standing. The duo looked at each other, and RAN, fast. The door was left flapping in the wind behind them. Ranma slowly rounded on the other pair across the table. "Ryoga-" he started but was interrupted.

"Is too stupid to know any of this." Nabiki said "Unlike you onichan. You should have got the lesson by now. I am VERY disappointed."

"Not good enough" said Ranma in a cold voice. Then to Akane he said "You have just used up your very last chance. After this you end it or I will. You will not like my way." He turned and bowed to the Ono's "Thank you for a wonderful meal, and the pleasure of your family's company." He put his hand out to Nabiki and she smiled and stood up. With baby Kimiko they went to the door and dressed to leave.

"I'm not having a good day" he said quietly.

"I'll make it up to you later" she whispered into his ear breathily.

As they walked down the steps there was an incoherent cry of rage from within. Akane had run up to her room crying tears of shame, fear and hurt. This had finally broken Ryoga out of his stupor, just in time to see her in tears. He had added up the evidence in front of his eyes and decided that Ranma was to blame and decided to take his vengance.

So he came hurtling out of the door screaming a battle cry, "Ranma for hurting Akane I will destroy your happiness." Nearly any other cry an he might have got of easy. Instead Ranma only heard a threat to his family. Hence Ryoga never had a chance to finish his first swing. Instead he found a roundhouse kick ushng his head to the left and a straight arm palm strike hitting him in the sternum. Ryoga flew backwards landing spread across the steps with a hefty thud. He arched his suddenly painful back then for a moment he lay still. By the time Ranma and his family had cleared the compound Ryoga had finally tried to catch a breath only to find himself coughing up blood instead.

-

* * *

-

That evening, with the baby put to bed, Ranma walked into his wife's comforting embrace and finally calmed down.

"Anata," he said "ate everything you've seen today are you sure about this amiy thing" he finished wearily.

"Did you see Kasumi's kid?" she asked in reply. He nodded. "Did you see her eating?" she asked. Again he nodded. "Did you see her sweet little smile?" she asked. This time he smiled as he nodded.

"I won't lie to you" she said "being a parent still scares the hell out of me. There are just too many people who have got it wrong for me ever to believe this is going to be easy. But I have never felt as good as I did that first time I saw you walk into the room with OUR baby. Ranma nothing has ever come easy to us, we have fought and strived for every single thing we have ever had, and being parents is going to be one of the toughest. But it is going to be worth every moment and if you doubt it all you have to do is look into our daughter's eyes and I swear all will become clear."

Ranma was silent for a moment and then nodded. "I was being stupid wasn't I." This time it was Nabiki's turn to nod.

"Yeah but that's the way I like you hero," she said. "And talking of you, care to explain why you are trying to come to bed with your boxers on?"

"You're wearing a nightie" he retorted. She responded by pulling the straps off her shoulders one by one and then, looking him in the eyes she let the whole thing drop. She beckoned him and he went to her, naked.

-

Elsewhere lying in a hospital bed a man woke up in agony. His whole body seemed to ache with a fierce fire. He knew the source of his pain, the cause of the hate that burned in his breast.

Saotome Ranma, the man who had wrecked his life for a second time.

Silently and with clenched fist he swore an oath to the furies.

He WOULD have his revenge.

Saotome Ranma would pay!


	6. Ghoulish Granny

** Chapter 6: Ghoulish Granny**

Ranma was rudely awoken by being hit on the forehead with something hard. The blow was not hard enough to do any damage and somewhere in his sleep addled brain he remembered being woken up like this before. As a result he woke up slowly and blearily.

"Not this morning ya old mummy" he muttered. There were a few moments of silence during which his brain added up what he had just said. The penny dropped, Ranma bolted upright. Sitting there on the end of his bed, illuminated by was a three-foot high, shrivelled creature that may once have been a woman. She was wearing green robes and clutching a gnarled stick, the weapon used to hit him, again.

"Granny?" he asked surprise warring with confusion.

"Son in law," she replied, smirking. "You might want to be a little quieter, in case you wake your new wife."

"WHAT THE" he started, then stopped, looked at Nabiki and restarted more quietly. "What the hell are you doing here?" he whispered.

"Can't an old woman visit her family?" she whispered back, amused by his confusion.

"I don't know, what's-

"How about we do this over there?" she told him, pointing at the couch set on the other side of the room. He nodded and followed. She pogo-ed silently over to the settee and turned to see him with that same smile back on her face. He stopped looked down at himself, blushed and pulled a robe on.

Soon the pair were ensconced on the comfy seats at the low morning table. It was just dawning outside so grey light was beginning to filter in through the windows. The old mummy had managed to produce a tea cup and two cups. While she was pouring Ranma took the time to sort his head out a bit. With a shake of his head and a big yawn he finally admitted defeat, he had no idea what she was doing here.

"Still not worked it out Son-in-law?" she asked, handing him a cup.

"Nope" he admitted, taking a sip and leaning back to savour the taste.

"You met the Hibiki boy today," she said. He nodded without opening his eyes. "Did you notice anything odd?" she asked.

"He knew the exploding rock thingy" he replied, now looking at her intently.

"Yes and where did he learn it?"

"He claimed you taught him" Ranma replied.

"Did I?" she asked.

"No, no way," Ranma replied after a moments thought, "Its an Amazon secret, there ain't no way you'd teach an idiot like him."

"So why does he think I did?" she asked.

"I don't know" Ranma said, exasperated, "Its early, I'm tired, and I'm not sure I give a fu-" she cut him off with a belt on the head.

"Some-one taught him the technique, claiming to be me," Cologne said.

"Why would they do that" Ranma asked trying to sound as if he cared.

"They say I have no heir" the woman replied. Ranma favoured her with a blank stare. "Without an heir to protect I am a wild card, no family no restraints."

"Ah" Ranma said, as if that explained everything.

"So imagine my surprise when in the middle of chasing down the boy I hear that my Son-in law is in town and that he has an heir with him," she said. Ranma was silent for a moment then coughed his tea out across the room.

"You don't mean.."

"Of course I do pup," she replied. "Little Kimiko is an Amazon of my line." Ranma just stuttered flabbergasted. "When you married Xian you became my son, when you married the Tendo girl she became my daughter and when you had Kimiko you provided my line with its scion."

"Granny," Ranma said with an edge creeping into his voice, "You are not taking my kid!"

"Of course I'm not son" she laughed, grinning her ghoulish smile, "It is far too much fun scaring the council, and I know I can trust you to bring her up properly."

"You mean bring her up like Xian," Ranma replied, warily.

"Exactly," Cologne agreed, " bring her up strong, independent and capable."

"I don't get it Granny," Ranma said "Why are you here?"

"Truthfully?" she asked, he nodded. "I miss Xian, I loved her very much." She added with real emotion.

"And when you heard that I had married again you wanted to check I wasn't dishonouring her memory?" Ranma guessed.

"Something like that," Cologne agreed, "and I have a weakness for babies."

"Fried or boiled?" Ranma asked, she hit him.

"Its good to see you son" she said.

"And you granny," he replied.

"And I like your wife," she added. "Just what you need to keep you in line."

"What does that mean" Ranma asked.

"Somebody smarter than you," she replied smiling, "not that that's hard." She added.

"Hey!" he retorted, but he was smiling.

"Does she know about Xian?" Cologne asked, a little more seriously.

"Yes, I do" Said Nabiki from the bed, "And I am trying to sleep." She sat up and added "Ranma if you want to catch up with Chinese undead please take it elsewhere."

"Oh no," Cologne disagreed, "I can't take your sperm bank away when the kid is actually doing a good job." Nabiki looked at her confused.

"Take the idiot back to bed and keep practising," Cologne added, "the more Amazons you two can make the better," then she turned back to Ranma "bring her to see the village sometime" she added quietly. With that Cologne bounded up onto her stick and through an open window.

"Ranma you will explain" Nabiki told him, "But now sleep."

-

* * *

- 

"So Xian and I were kicking about the base waiting for a call out when she tells me we're married. As you can imagine I was more than a little taken aback, I mean as far as I knew we were not even engaged but hey what would I know." Ranma and Nabiki were sitting on the couch, dressed in bathrobes, with her leaning against him, using him as a pillow. They had eaten breakfast and fed the baby, who was now happily being bounced on Nabiki's chest. "Are you sure you wanna hear this" he asked uncertainly.

"Yes I am anata" she replied. "She was a big part of your life and that's not going to change just because I'm in it. And no I'm not going to get jealous."

"Okay, if you're sure." Ranma replied still not sure himself."

"So she told you that you were married." Nabiki prompted.

"Yeah," Ranma began "She made me er- 'persuade her' to tell me," he continued with a uncomfortable blush, "an then explained that her tribe are a bit more 'free' with their marriages. Apparently since the day I first beat her I was sort of engaged to her, and he moment she found out I was a guy she didn't really have a choice but to marry me."

"That seems a little weird" Nabiki said.

"Yeah well it was a real weird time in my life ya know." Ranma explained. "Anyway all that remained was for her to make it official, which she did that first time in the gym."

"When she pulled your shorts off and raped the shit out of you" Nabiki snickered.

"Hey, it wasn't like that" Ranma protested, "Okay, maybe it was but you still shouldn't say things like that in font of Kimi." She just blew a raspberry.

"Cologne I didn't meet till after Xian died" Ranma said, resuming the story. "I was injured at the time, took a mauling in the mission beforehand and so I wan't there to stop her." Nabiki reached over and squeezed his hand. "Long time ago" he said, and neither of them really believed it. "Any way Jack got a letter back from Cologne asking for Xian's body to be repatriated, an I volunteered.

"I flew out to the village in a jet-copter, with Xian's body in a chest next to me, I think those were some of the worst hours of my life. But they did give me time to say goodbye ya know" he said getting quieter. She squeezed his hand again.

"In the village they were none too impressed with our entrance, apparently we had landed on somebody's herb garden, and they really didn't want to meet gun toting foreigners very much, especially since we were all men." Ranma continued.

"The whole men are only good for one thing rap?" Nabiki asked.

"Yep, and apparently we only get that right half the time," Ranma agreed. "Well Granny guessed who I was straight away, but I had a little more trouble convincing some of the others."

"Didn't they remember you from the first time you were there?" Nabiki asked, confused.

"I wasn't er looking the same at the time," Ranma said, " ANYway" he continued, glossing as fast as he could, "After I er showed them I was the same person they accepted that I was Xian's partner and let me formally speak to the people in charge, namely Cologne."

"She's important there then?" Nabiki asked.

"Yeah she's kinda president-ess or something. You know head ghoul." Ranma replied and Nabiki nodded. "So I tell them that I am there to deliver Xian's body home and they all do this wailing thing, scared the crap outa me."

"You?" Nabiki asked.

"Hey last time I was in town they decided they wanted to kill me." He explained.

"Kiss of death" Nabiki deduced.

"Yeah, so you can imagine how I'm feeling as Cologne walks up and kisses me. My first reaction was to think she was trying the kiss of death. Then I remembered that men get the kiss of marriage instead, not that was any better, I mean you saw Cologne. So I'm ready to bolt when she says 'Thank-you son' and I swear you could hear the village let out its breath."

"Huh?" interrupted Nabiki.

"Seems that she had the right to make me accompany Xian into the afterlife or even keep me as some sorta male concubine, but didn't cuz o' what Xian had told her about me in her letters.

"I stayed there for a week while I convalesced and they prepeared for Xian's funeral and Cologne and I spent most of that time talking. We talked about everything we could think of, but it always came back to her ya know. I had never really realised how important Xian was in her village till I stayed there"

"She must have thought a lot of you," Nabiki said

"Xian?"

"Yes," Nabiki replied

" Yeah we were quite an item," Ranma said, "like paired blades you know"

"I think so" said Nabiki quietly.

"But you na me" Ranma said hurriedly "we're something special too. Like er… a coin" he finished

"Two sides of?"

"Uh huh" he agreed.

"Corny but nice effort," Nabiki said squeezing his hand again "and I always did have a weakness for metaphors involving money." She got up, handed him their baby and headed for the shower.

"Oh and Ranma," she said, stopping in the doorway, "don't think I missed you hiding something. One day I hope you will trust me enough to tell me."

As she shut the door Ranma turned to Kimiko, "oops, daddy messed up again didn't he? Yes he did. Yes he did!" he finished in a baby voice.

-

* * *

-

Ranma gave her a little while and then followed her in, baby on his hip. She was just slipping into the bath. It was the one fixture she had insisted on from their hotel and had come at quite a premium, but if it meant he didn't have to stay near his pops Ranma was more than willing to pay.

He sat down on the edge of the bath, took a moment to check her out and then looked her in the eyes.

"Nabs its not that I don't trust you" he began, only to be interrupted.

"Its okay Anata, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have pushed you," Nabiki said, "I know you well enough to know you wouldn't be hiding anything that would hurt us, I ws just slipping into spy mode, sorry."

"Nabs, its okay." Ranma said, very relieved. "You really should know, its just, well a little bit hard to believe and well sorta embarrassing," he finished. Nabiki's face lit up, now she was really intrigued. "Do you remember asking me about Ranko?" he asked.

-

A/N just a quick point that has irked me, some-one sent me a mail complaining about my spelling. Specifically they were complaining about my use of the word 'Commando,' once and for all I would like to point out. A commando is a GROUP of solidiers, it has also become used to describe an individual member of that group but I am not being 'stupid' when I use the phrase Alpha Commando, nor when I describe 'the commando' doing something as a group action. So please no more on that, thanks.

As for everybody else. Since I am doing a note I'll just say thanks for your help and thanks for reading. The reviews you send do make a difference and I hope you are noticing an improvement or two as I go on.


	7. Ranko's story

**Chapter 7: Ranko's story.**

"So there I was in the pool that pops had knocked me into, looking at these great big breasts sticking out of my chest, You have no idea how pissed I was." Ranma was explaining Jusenko to Nabiki who was going through various stages, first she had been disbelieving then sympathetic now she was desperately trying not to laugh her ass off.

"The guide is all 'very tragic story' and 'poor mister customer' and I take one look at him then look at dad. I took off after him as fast as I have ever run in my entire life and whoo you should'a seen the beatin' I gave him when I caught the fat shit." Nabiki was nodding soberly, still trying to quell the smile.

"So that's when you went to the Amazon village?" she said, mouth wobbling.

"Yeah, an of course they are all treatin me like a girl an stuff, so you can imagine how happy I am. Dad scoffs the prize, I challenge Xian and everything goes to shit all over again. I get the first real kiss from a girl and not only am I a girl at the time but I'm also being told that I'm dead meat."

"That's just too bad" Nabiki said, really trying for sincere through her smile.

"We leg it. An Xian just keeps chasing us. Every time we think we've lost 'er she turns up, 'Ranma, you I kill! She shouts" he said imitating Xian's cute attempt at Japanese. "And if that ain't bad enough one of the first thing she shoots is my goddamn water pot. It was ages till either dad or I got any hot water."

"That's too bad" Nabiki said, smile fading a bit at the genuine distate in Ranma's account.

"Worse than you think," he added, "Cuz it was a long time, like longer than a month" he finished ominously. Nabiki was puzzled for a second, made the connection and burst into peals of laughter.

"Hey, its not funny I thought I was dyin'" Ranma argued. She only laughed the harder. HE sat there doing a manly pout.

"Oh come on" she said "It IS that funny. Imagine how Genma must have felt, getting his ass handed to him by a cute little red head. Imagine how badly he was shitting himself over having to try and explain what exactly was happening 'down there'" Ranma thought about it for a moment and then smiled.

"Okay, maybe that is a bit funny." He agreed, "But the rest of it really wasn't. You any idea how long it took me to get used to peeing from a squat?" She looked at him with another attempt at a serious face, but it was ruined by the corner of her mouth twitching.

"So that was what all the mix up in the village was about?" Nabiki said.

"Most of it," Ranma replied.

"Only most?" she asked.

"There was this guy Mu Tse, he had a different problem" Ranma answered.

"Had?" Nabiki asked, guessing the answer.

"By the end it was kill him or die by his hand," Ranma answered.

"Something to do with Xian" Nabiki guessed.

"HE loved her, she chose me, I didn't protect her well enough, he came after my blood, I spilt his." Ranma replied.

"There's more to this" Nabiki observed.

"He was really rude about what Xain and I had, and I was still hurting real bad." Ranma said quietly, "Maybe, just maybe I could have calmed things down but to be honest I just needed to hurt someone. Turned out to be him"

"So you still had he curse when you joined X-Com?" Nabiki asked, changing the subject.

"Yeah, but we were inside and I sorta managed to hide it most o' the time" Ranma replied. Nabiki looked doubtful.

"Okay some o' the guys sorta guessed but you gotta remember this was in the darkest days. Nobody really cared, back then you didn't even ask someone else's full name. There just wasn't any point in getting attached to someone who was gonna die that soon. 'Specially since you might have to be the one that killed 'em." This did manage to sober Nabiki's mood up. "Xian helped a lot too, an Sam, when she got over the impossibility of it."

"Sam knows?" Nabiki asked "who else?"

"All the bigwigs of the original base, an Kodachi of course."

"Of course?" Nabiki asked.

"She was my shrink remember," Ranma replied, "Fortunately she ain't into women, that woulda freaked me out." He finished with a shiver. Nabiki's smile was back.

"So you were never tempted to…'experement'?" she asked, teasingly.

"Oh sure I was," Ranma replied, honestly "but being tempted and doing are two different things. Xian and I spent the night together that way and she may have given me a few 'pointers' but we never really 'got it on' that way."

"Why not?" Nabiki asked.

"Cuz one I got the fix pretty soon after we started 'going out'" he explained, making it clear that they didn't do a lot of actual dating, " and two Xian and I were usually too busy screwing each other to get kinky."

"water's getting cold" Nabiki said, standing up out of it, and deriving no small amount of satisfaction from the way his eyes devoured her body. "You just going to sit there stud, or do I get a towel?" she said, striking a bit of a pose. He put the baby down in her cot and came back holding a towel. He dropped it. She was unprepared for his passionate attack. But the resulting tender 'embrace' went a long way to convincing her that whatever he felt for Xian he was all hers now.

-

* * *

-

"You said fix" Nabiki said, "not cure." The two of them were lying on the slightly damp bed, with her half on top of him, luxuriating in their afterglow. Nabiki was feeling inquisitive. IT always seemed to affect her this way, and he always was more pliable afterwards.

"Uh-huh" Ranma replied. "Not cured" he added simply. She stroked his hair back, kissed him and said,

"Details Saotome!"

He grunted and reluctantly answered, "Can still change but takes REALLY cold water."

"Like ice?" Nabiki asked.

"Uh-huh, lots of," he replied, immediately wishing he hadn't. Just the calculating look on her face gave him chills. "Nabiki no!" he commanded.

"Isn't a girl entitled to see what her lover looks like in the flesh?" she asked, pouting a little, but her eyes were still sparkling with mischief.

"No!" Ranma replied.

"Please" she begged.

"No" he replied.

-

The two of them were walking through a park on their way to Ukyo's hand in hand. Ranma, in girl form was pouting like mad.

"This is really awkward" he grumbled. Nabiki just smiled, that twinkle still there.

"But you're sooo cute" she said. He snarled back, incidentally looking cuter. Nabiki couldn't resist so she kissed him. He stopped looking at her stunned.

"Nabs, I am a chick at the moment" he said. She wrapped her arms around his-her shoulders.

"I do have eyes" she said.

"But what about the people?" he began.

"As if I care," she said, "I love you, not just your body," she added. "Besides who says they haven't seen me with a girl before."

"Wha?" Ranma asked confused and happy at the same time.

"You are not the only one with a past," Nabiki said, and then led him off towards the restaurant.

-

* * *

- 

Nabiki and Ranma-girl were sitting at the counter in Ukyo's place both trying hard to hide their feelings. Ranma was trying to hide his discomfort over Konatsu's discreet approaches, and Ukyo's waxing lyrical about his male form's good 'qualities;' while at the same time Nabiki was trying hard not to laugh at this same discomfort.

"So he's got a new arm grafted?" Ukyo was asking "Damn they can do some amazing stuff these days."

"Yes they sure can" Nabiki said. "I bet they could even totally someone's body" she added, smiling.

"Do you reckon?" asked Konatsu.

"Sure of it," Nabiki replied. "In fact my friend here-"

"Nabiki!" Ranma warned.

"Oh sorry, forget I said anything" Nabiki replied with false apologies. Konatsu looked at Ranma all the more appraisingly.

"I am going to make you pay for this Nabiki" Ranma whispered in English.

"Huh?" asked Ukyo. "You say something sugar?"

"Nah" Ranma replied, digging into his food with a vengeance.

"Whoa girl" Ukyo said, causing a wink, "Girl as pretty as you should watch her figure." Ranma started growling under his breath. Nabiki had to run to the ladies, before she burst. Even so they all heard her braying in the toilets. Ukyo looked around.

"Was it something I said?" she asked cluelessly.

It was at that moment that Ranma and Nabiki's phones both sounded an alarm. Ranma flipped his open, grabbed his food in one hand and started for the door. Nabiki was only two strides behind.

"Sorry Ucchan" he said "gotta run!" And then they were gone.


	8. Dark Doings

**Chapter 8: Dark doings.**

Ranma and Nabiki were back at their hotel in a shot. No sooner had they got in the door than she started up a larger, secure phone with its own white noise generator and he was cramming their stuff into their pack.

"We'll stop by Nodoka's on the way out," Ranma said, they had left Kimiko with her grandmother, intending to have a day to themselves for once.

"Hot water" Nabiki said. Then into the phone she repeated a secure access code. It bleeped a recognition and she pressed another few numbers.

"What's happening Jack?" she said into the phone. "We were assured that the deep space scans showed nothing for days yet."

"Still true Nabiki," he replied, "sorta."

"Sort of?" she asked.

"Yeah, seems like the eggheads got their sums wrong again. But that isn't what this is about." Jack replied.

"It's not?" Nabiki asked.

"Nope," Jack replied, "We got another problem." Nabiki groaned. "Someone got hold of a copy of the Cydonia file" he added. "And no I don't have a clue how they did it."

"What aren't you telling me?" Nabiki asked sensing something else.

"Armand is mixed up in this," Jack reported. "It was Marsec's copy."

"I'll kill him" Nabiki said.

"Just remember its him and not me" Jack said. "There's a little bit more." He said quietly, "just a little bit."

"What?" Nabiki asked exasperated.

"He may be under the impression he's going to be arrested."

"May be?" Nabiki said leadingly, "What exactly did you tell him?"

"Uh, something like 'You're a maggot and I'll see you rot in hell'" Jack replied.

"Something like?"

"Something a lot like."

"Where is he?"

"Hong Kong" Jack replied. Nabiki looked over and saw that Ranma was done packing.

"Okay, flight from Tokyo ASAP, and I want Sam or Laura to pick Kimi up" Nabiki ordered. (slightly ignoring the fact that he was the superior officer.)

"Yes Ma'am" Jack replied with more than a hint of sarcasm.

-

* * *

- 

"Ranma Something just occurred to me," Nabiki said. They were in a taxi going at a well tipped speed towards the airport, bag and baby on their laps. "Ranko could qualify for flight status."

"Huh?" Ranma asked.

"They won't let you fly right?" Nabiki said.

"Yes" Ranma said slowly.

"But nobody said anything about Ranko…"

"That's great" Ranma enthused, "no wait, it'll never wash, Sam and Jack both know and you know Jack's view, 'if I gotta-

"Fly a desk then so do you!" they finished together.

"But it might sneak you through flight school at least" Nabiki said. Ranma nodded. "we can worry about active status afterwards."

"You trying to get rid of me/" he asked confused.

"Don't be silly" she said, biffing his arm "But I do know you're going to go spare if they manage to keep you out of this one." Ranma nodded his thanks, then kissed her.

"Thanks beautiful." He said

"Not just a pretty face" she added with a smile.

"Nah, your breasts are amazing too" he added jokingly, only to get another mock punch.

-

* * *

- 

The helicopter bancked, turning sharply to the left as it came over the mountain. Below them sat the urban sprawl that was Hong Kong. Tall glass skyscrapers vied with traditional wooden houses for a stretch of the over-populated island. For over a century it had been a meeting place built on trade of all sorts. In the new millennium it was rapidly making itself a world leader in the darker side of the far east. Here eastern values clashed with western capitalist immorality, steadily the fabric of lawful society was slipping deeper into the morass of corruption.

As the helicopter came in over the city it swept low over the skyscrapers. Un-observed four dark figures dropped from its sides, floating inhumanly down to the flat top of a building. The helicopter continued on its way, cover mission ready for deployment.

The four blacked out figures landed lightly on the helipad of the steel and glass building. Three of them immediately took covering positions, weapons sweeping the fire arcs. The fourth just knelt on the ground unmoving.

"Clear," the voices called one by one over their scrambled coms.

"Secure!" Ranma ordered, pulling his hood back and moving to kneel next to Nabiki. "You okay babe?" he asked. She nodded. "Quite a rush eh?" he asked.

"That has to be one of the scariest things I have ever done!" she stated emphatically. "Next time you decide to use me as a human bomb, don't"

"What you didn't like that?" he asked incredulous.

"Is it so very hard to understand that some people think jumping out of a perfectly good helicopter, at terminal velocity, over a city, without a parachute, and with no practice, is more than a little crazy?" she asked, finally looking him in the face.

"I don't remember claiming to be sane" he replied with a smirk, helping her up. "And no I can't understand people who wouldn't want to do that," he finished. She just shook her head and followed him.

In the lift the other two were switching their gear around, rapidly changing to look like some ordinary, heavily built, executives. All of them were carriying a small briefcase and wore a snappy, slightly bulky suit and fake glasses. The briefcases could be dropped away at a touch to reveal their smg's, the suits were armoured and the glasses had optical readouts printing on their inside, but nobody else needed to know that.

Nabiki readjusted her trouser suit, pulling back the lapels to reveal more cleavage and hefted her case. She knew that it was too heavy for her to carry subtly but couldn't see a way around it. She did like the glasses though, they added a certain something and she briefly toyed with wearing some more often.

"Laura you good" Ranma asked the other woman, who was looking a little peaky.

"Piss off" she replied, "You know I hate those whirling death traps." She too adjusted her lapels and hefted her case, but was far more worried about the lack of armour over her chest than the weight of one little case of gear.

"Okay Hiroshi" Ranma asked, just for the sake of completeness. The man nodded and cracked a big smile.

"Peachy boss" he replied.

"Okay from here on out its my wife's show. I don't think I need to tell any of you how carefully I want her protected!"

"No sir" the small commando replied.

"Okay babe, do your stuff." He said to Nabiki.

-

* * *

- 

Half an hour later they were in Detective Patrick Li's office. Nabiki was laying it on thick while the others tried to look as inconspicuous as they could. Instead they stuck out like sore thumbs, just like the government men Nabiki wanted them to look like.

"Detective all I want is a word with the man, what possible harm could that do?" she asked. He didn't look convinced, but between the heavies and that woman's cleavage he was having a very hard time concentrating anyway.

"Fine, but I want one of my men in the room!" he caved in.

"Acceptable," Nabiki nodded. "Lead on." She said, sliding off the corner of his desk.

The man led them to some holding cells where he got the duty sergeant to move a man to one of the interview rooms.

Ataru was not a happy man, he had got out of the agency just ahead of charges, fortunately he had once again landed on his feet and got a job in Marsec. Unfortunately he proved to be nearly as bad at that as he had been at soldiering. His one real skill, as he well knew, was girls, for some reason all the craziest ones seemed to be attracted to him, and to his chagrin, only the crazy ones. So he had finagled himself into a top position by selling out a psycho blond who had been spying on Armand for the uber-bitch. Armand had recognised his use and kept him close, incidentally stopping the harassment proceedings at the same time. Everything had been fine until this morning. It wasn't his fault, not really, the little minx had been asking for it, with that tight little tush and those-

His train of thought was suddenly cut off as the ape in police clothing threw him into an interview room. He looked up and nearly shat himself. There, dressed in executioner black was the uber-bitch herself and a duo of hard faced killers. He turned and sprang for the door. Only to find the bitches' pet killer blocking his way, and smiling!

"I'm out" he said in Japanese "You haven't got anything on me. I work for Armand not you!"

"And that is what we are here to talk about" the bitch said also in Japanese, taking a seat opposite him. He found himself moved bodily into the other seat. As the door shut behind the last entrant it sounded like a coffin slamming. He gulped and started to sweat.

"What ever you want" he said with only a slight quaver.

"Good answer" replied Nabiki. "First we want to know where your boss is right now!"

"I er don't know" Ataru lied, already knowing this was going to hurt.

"Tut tut" Nabiki said, leaning back and nodding to Ranma. Ataru felt the vise-like grip on his shoulder tighten, but more worryingly he also felt the sharp pains of a mental attack starting to cut into his mind. At that moment he wished he was anywhere but here. He, for once, followed his training, bricking up his mind, blotting out the sensation, working at repelling the intrusion. Only when he felt his collarbone flex did he realise his mistake.

The pain cut through his body like an electric current, his concentration wavered and at that moment he knew that they were going to kill him. Fear gripped his cowardly soul like the tentacles of a vile demon

"Ease up" Nabiki ordered, and suddenly the pain was gone, leaving only a numbness. "Let me make something very clear," Nabiki started, "The Master sergeant behind me wants you dead for something you did some time ago, and I'm inclined to let her. I haven't told Ranma anything yet and he already wants to hurt you. Simply put I am the only one standing between you and a very messy, painful end. Tell me what I want to know, and maybe…." He leapt on the offer like a drowning man onto a liferaft.

"He's in his new office but you won't get in there," he blabbed. Nabiki turned her head just a little to indicate she was listening. "He's meeting a buyer tonight at the Dragon Triangle, he will be less guarded there, maybe you can…"

"Thank you Ataru, you have been most helpful" Nabiki said standing up. She turned to the officer who was regarding them all blankly. "All yours, for the moment." Then she led her group out and Ataru finally relaxed.

As the door closed Hiroshi just heard Ataru's lament "I think I crapped myself." In front of them was the officer from upstairs. Apparently he wasn't very happy with Nabiki holding the 'interview in Japanese, especially since his microphone had been playing up for some reason.

As Hiroshi suspected the man backed down fairly fast under Nabiki's non-plussed silence.

"Detective there will be a disturbance at the Dragon Triangle tonight" she told him. "I suggest you prepare for the worst." Then she led the others off, pausing by the door to the rest of the building. "Oh and if we are expected there I will know who to blame won't I?" Then the four of them left and Hiroshi couldn't help but smile.

-

* * *

- 

Still say you lot should have let me hit him at least once!" Laura grumbled for the fifth time.

"Didn't you bust his jaw at the time?" Hiroshi argued back.

"Yeah but it obviously got better," she replied.

"and split his pelvic bone?" Hiroshi continued.

"Yeah well he deserved it," the woman responded. "he's lucky that's all he got." Hiroshi had the sense to nod at this and hope she would drop the subject.

They were sat in a rented blacked out Land-rover outside an office where Nabiki and Ranma were setting up some sort of cover to get them into the bar later that night. How Nabiki had managed to rent a car at this hour, let alone one of this quality Hiroshi didn't want to hazard a guess, nor did he want to know how she had known the correct manner of setting up a business deal with the Triads.

What he did know was that tonight was shaping up to be real messy and he already had a bad feeling about it.

"This wasn't the plan" he grumbled. Laura laughed.

"Improvise, Adapt-

"and overcome!" he finished. "But there is definitely something we are missing!"

"When you think of it" Laura said "How about you tell the rest of us?"

-

* * *

- 

Twenty minutes later the Land rover pulled into the underground car park of the triad bar and four Yakuza gangsters stepped out. All had very hard looks on their face and if one looked carefully you could make out the edges of their tattoos at their necks and cuffs.

For just a moment there seemed to be a fifth figure, dressed in a black cloak of shadows and carrying a scythe of all things. But it was probably just a trick of the light.


	9. Dragon's den

**Chapter 9: the Dragon's lair.**

With the rest of the team flanking her Nabiki stepped out of the lift into the club's red velour lobby. So far everything was going to plan but she still had a niggling premonition of danger.

Seeing their tattoo markings one wannabe triad stepped up to give them some lip, Laura bust his nose with a palm strike without even looking. They stepped over the groaning fool and proceeded into the bar proper.

It was heaving, slightly out of date techno tunes thumping through a massive bass system playing for a legion of dancers. The room was large and heavily stylised, Chinese lanterns and raised walkways giving an old world feel. Intermixed with this was the neon blue lights of the bars and a long mirrorewd window set over the ance floor. Every so often another batch of dry ice would pour from some dragon mouths set opposite it, covering the floor in a hovering mist.

Nabiki nodded at the stairs and together they moved through the throng. When the dancers caught sight of them they rapidly made way, some with a few snide comments but most with a look approaching panic.

Still in formation the quartet ascended the stairs, passing two bouncer-thugs along the way, and started across the walkway towards the mirrored office. By now every single one of them knew something was up.

Ranma whispered "stop" over the coms. Even as he did the window shattered outwards to reveal a dozen gun-wielding goons. "BOMBSHELL!" he ordered, grabbing Nabiki and tipping them both over the edge. Laura went the other way but Hiroshi was just not fast enough. He was hit by well over a dozen rounds, most were stopped from penetrating by the suit, only breaking ribs instead, but one hit him just above the eye and another passed through his open mouth. He was dead before he hit the ground.

As Ranma landed he pushed Nabiki at the bar, at the same time pulling his weapon from the case and launching a stun bomb from its underbarrel launcher. Laura had less compunction and sprayed the goons on the stairs with a stream of high energy rounds. They were literally ripped apart.

The Stun grenade burst on the roof of the office, throwing men clear, and into the now screaming crowd.

Nabiki for her part had ditched her case and was wildly spraying rounds at the people behind the bar. By the time she rolled over it there was only one man left there and he was fixedly staring at the ceiling, gaping hole in his chest. As she took cover and changed magazines she kept up a continual stream of swearing, this was not how this was supposed to go.

Ranma had moved to cover and was picking off the goons who were coming in from the entrance. A single round had hit him in the back as he turned but his suit had stopped it, and Laura had put a three round burst through the shooter.

Laura for her part was Taking cover behind a low wall, and mentally swearing just as hard as Nabiki. She popped up just long enough to launch a second stun bomb into the office and called for orders.

Ranma thought for a second. "Nabs, covering fire, Laura boost me to the walkway!" he ordered moving towards Laura.

"SHITSHITSHITSHITSHIT!" Nabiki swore, obediently popping up and firing at the crouching goons by the door. She was pretty sure she wasn't hitting any of them but she figured Ranma knew what he was doing. As it happened she was underestimating her weapon. The rounds were easily punching through the goons' cover and making a mess of the people beyond.

Perfectly timed with a new burst of dry ice Ranma was boosted straight up and onto the walkway. A couple of desultory shots came from a goon in the bar below but Laura soon 'educated' him on the value of discretion.

He ran, weapon readied, along the walkway, used it's rail as a springboard and leapt into the office.

A quick scan revealed a half dozen well dressed mobsters but no Armand. He put a trio of rounds into the guy slumped behind the desk, swept up the O'Neil hard drive sitting on the floor and called to the others. "Target has fled. Recent!"

Ranma moved quickly back to the walkway. "By the numbers on me!" he ordered, setting himself up to cover the room.

"Shitshitshit shitshitshit shitity-shit shit" Nabiki chanted as she leapt over the bar and ran for the stairs, only remembering her case when she was already there. She turned to go back but Laura motioned her on. At the top she dropped into a crouch as closely approximating Ranma's as she could. All the while she was aware of just how scared she was, of her heart threatening to pull clear of her chest and of the sudden clarity that she was seeing. "Go!" she ordered, knowing that Laura didn't really need to be told, and that the only reason any orders were being given long-hand was because she was on the 'run.'

Laura threw her own case up to the walkway and then went to retrieve Nabiki's case. It was at that moment a goon decided to be a hero. He stepped out from behind an ornamental fern and levelled his cannon sized pistol at her face. The next moment slowed to interminal length. She saw the hammer pull back, heard a series of shots and saw the goon thrown sideways. Ranma had nailed him in the face with a trio of rounds and the man's head just spread out across the room. His gun discharged harmlessly into the ceiling.

"Boss" she said, running for the walkway, "I am never going anywhere again without proper armour!" He didn't reply, instead waving her on past them to secure then Triad boss's private elevator.

As she did that Ranma motioned for Nabiki to join cover the fire arc and went to Hiroshi's body. He skated the cases along to Laura and then hefted his team-mate onto his shoulder, blood and gore dribbling over him as he did.

Nobody else tried anything and the three of them were able to steal the boss's black sedan and get clear even as the police response team arrived.

-

* * *

- 

Ranma was driving away, intent on getting some quick distance rather than going anywhere in particular. Next to him Nabiki was shaking with shock as her body came down from its near lethal encounter.

She had expected some gun-play but nothing to that extent, and had certainly never expected to have to shoot anyone herself. On the other hand she was feeling sort of good. The aftermath of the battle had brought all sorts of feelings and she was having a hard time sorting them out. Her body was feeling little short of fantastic. Her pulse was still racing and she felt as high as a kite. She could still see the barman's ruined chest, and the gun he had clutched in his hand, but the relief she felt was driving any guilt far far away. "Is it always like this. Afterwards I mean?" she asked Ranma.

"Yeah pretty much" he replied. "Still rushing?" he asked. She nodded. "An old guy tried to explain it to me once, he said 'it is only when we risk death that we truly appreciate life'" Ranma added with a mock old man accent. "Load of crap if you ask me but the rush sure is a kick eh?"

"Its making me feel really odd" Nabiki said.

"Me too" Ranma added, "and if we weren't so busy…." That was when Nabiki identified one of the feelings that was pulsing through her.

"Kami I'm horny" she said, half exclamation and half surprise. Ranma smiled at her and pulled her in for a deep kiss.

"Later" he whispered and went back to driving.

In the back Laura was trying hard not to notice the two lovers. She could have told them what the shrink told her, that what they were feeling was a biological imperative hardwired into nearly every living thing that fought for a mate but decided to let the couple work it out for themselves. And enjoy the feeling before Hiroshi's death brought them crashing back to earth.

"That sucked" Laura said, clearing her gun to load up a fresh mag. "How the fuck did they know we were coming?" There was a moment of silence as the other two pulled their brains back to the job at hand.

"Coms" Ranma said. Nabiki swore, and Laura looked blank for a moment before joining her.

"He may not be able to crack the code but the bastard must have been able to rig some sort of short range detector," Ranma said. Nabiki nodded.

"Wait" she exclaimed "this may work to our advantage. Laura give us that secure phone."

Laura handed her the phone and made a few coded calls. Minutes passed, and Ranma was forced to park in a multi-story. When she hung up she was smiling. "Got the bastard!" she swore. The other two looked over for an explanation.

"I got the Okinawa base, the west African listening station and the high Siberian to do a T-doppler comparison. Cross linked it with a signal variance set and-

"Okay" Ranma interrupted looking over at her, "you did some egg-head shit. But time is sorta a premium here."

"Fine" Nabiki pouted, "His detector is on the move, heading out to sea on the water's surface."

"Damn!" Ranma swore

"You can say that again"

"AND" Nabiki continued "I've arranged for the chopper to pick us up on top of this building" The other two looked at her, then back at each other.

"Damn she is good!" Laura said. "Far too good for you!"

"Oi!" he replied, starting up the engine again.

-

* * *

- 

Once again they were airborne and flying over the city. Once again Laura was swearing that Ranma did this just to torment her. She could cope with the Avenger dropships, could cope with the orbital insertions, even genuinely liked Zero gravity but there was something about the way helicopters were constantly one missed current from plummeting that really unsettled her.

Looking around the helicopter she could see the young couple whispering quietly to each other, presumably the same sort of thing her husband had said to her before she came on this mission. Maybe even the same sort of things that Hiroshi's girlfriend said to him. Hiroshi who was now lying in a black bag tied to the helicopter's floor.

For the sixth time she checked her SMG, more out of something to do than any need to recheck what she could do in hr sleep.

Finding the fugitive's vessel was proving to be harder than they had anticipated, and taking a lot longer. It wasn't really the pilot's fault they were operating under fairly serious constraints. The last thing X-Com needed was to be caught in an act of piracy.

Okay the last thing they needed was an alien armada turning up to wipe humanity from the face of the universe, but that wasn't due for ages yet.

"Found them Sir" said the co-pilot. "They are really moving"

"What in?" Ranma asked, coming back to the real world.

"Bad news Colonel it's a sub" the pilot said, "running quiet and fast cruise on the surface."

"Great so if we get too close they'll duck under and whoosh, no traitor." Laura spat. "Damn when I catch that shit I am going to hit him sooo hard!"

"Wait," Nabiki said "They have to know we are here right?" Ranma nodded. "So why haven's they submerged?" The two soldiers looked at each other.

"They don't think we can find them?" Ranma hazarded.

"So we don't find them" Nabiki said. "we miss them and go away…."

"Except we don't really cuz we're" Ranma prompted.

"Because YOU are in the water along their line of approach" Nabiki corrected.

-

* * *

- 

"This is a Very bad idea!" Laura pointed out, again. Ranma just smiled and finished belting on the harness. From the harness ran a very long cable and she was attached at the other end. They were both wearing their bounce packs under their armour and carrying their weapons slung on their backs. At Laura's insistence they also wore full helm's with air backups. Added to all this was still more cable and a jury-rigged hefty launcher each with winch attached.

The 'plan' was to string themselves out across the path of the sub. Allow it to hook them up and then reel themselves in as quietly as possible. From there they had breaching charges and would be fighting through the ship.

Strangely enough Laura was more than a little dubious about the whole prospect. Ranma was not helping much, his confident smile making things seem all the worse.

He kept smiling right up to the point that they were standing in the open hatch. THEN he said "You know this does look a little difficult." She was just about to shout at him when he pushed her out of the vehicle.

"AHHHHH!" she screamed all the way down, righting herself by instinct rather than conscious thought. "I am going to kill you Saotome" she said as suddenly she hit the water.

-

* * *

- 

They had floated there in the water for only a few minutes when the black bulk of the sub appeared through the darkness. It was travelling comparatively fast and straight The two of them had only moments to prepare themselves and then the floating cable caught the hydroplanes. The jerk that followed seemed to try to tear both of them limb from limb, and then they were being dragged along at approaching eighty miles an hour.

Even the normally professional master sergeant let out a loud oath.

-

* * *

- 

The slog up to the sub's surface was really hard going, by the time the two of them had gathered in the lee of the conning tower they were both drenched, stretched and very sore.

"That was a very bad idea" Laura mouthed to him. Ranma just smiled back as if to point out that it DID work.

She just ignored it and got on with setting her charges. They were about to blow the hull wide open and she was enjoying every moment of it. Ranma on the other hand was slightly more disconcerted. The last time he had been using a frame charge he had nearly blown her up and he wasn't entirely sure she wasn't still harbouring a grudge.

She set the timer, they retreated around the tower and crouched down in the spray.

With an almighty boom the charge turned night into day. It blew a massive hole in top of the vessel, and threw shrapnel high into the dawning sky. Even while the ringing of the hull was still dying down the pair of agents swung over the gap and dropped one after the other through the hole.

Able seaman Rick Mcandless had been having a good day. Now things were going wrong, the sun wasn't even up and someone had blown him up. His head was ringing like a brass bell and he was leaking blood from both his ears. Just as he was getting back up some black clad psycho dropped in the new skylight and he just had time to catch her smile before she smacked him in the face with her gun-butt.

Laura swung to cover her fire arcs. Nobody. She heard a was waiting for the double tap from Ranma when she realised that they would probably still be deaf from the explosion. Instead she hit the floor twice, hard. He responded with the 'carry on' signal the same way.

-

* * *

- 

The team in the control room never saw what hit them, only one of them even noticed the door open, then the stun bomb swept away all thought.

Ranma moved into the room following the detonation. All five crew were down. He stamped twice and received a stamped confirmation. A quick check revealed the cameras operational in all but one bay of the vessel and Ranma quickly identified that one as the most likely hide out of Armand.

The pair leapfrogged back through the vessel till they got to the door.

Laura blasted the lock, kicked the door and leapt aside. Ranma dodged into the empty doorway, and back again.

A stream of high energy bullets came through the gap, tearing through the wall opposite. Ranma And Laura immediately backed off, to be rewarded by seeing the area either side of the doorway riddled with holes.

"Stand Down!" Ranma ordered. "There is no way you are getting out of here a free man!"

"Encoulez-vous cochon!" Replied the voice. "I will kill you both."

"Aramand?" Ranma asked.

"No I am ze tooth fairy" Armand replied sarcastically

"Can't we just kill him?" Laura asked.

"Nah," Ranma replied reluctantly. "The prick has to sing before he croaks."

"OK" Laura replied, pulling a grenade off her bandolier. She crept belly down across the floor until she was within throwing distance. Then she threw it in, and it bounced straight out again.

"You throw like a girl" Ranma said, pulling her back.

"I am a girl dumbass" she said hitting him. "Its not charged. Now go kick his ass."

"Sure don't hit like one," Ranma smiled as the penny dropped and ran around the doorway. Inside Armand was just recovering from the cover position he had thrown himself into, just in time to get Ranma's booted foot across his face. As he went down the Frenchman got one last look at his assailant and a hefty kick in the gut to speed him into unconsciousness.

Laura came round the corner to see Ranma stepping away. "Hey when do I get a turn?"

"Go call the chopper" he ordered, righting the rebel.

As she left he noticed a satellite phone open on the table, he picked it up just in time to hear someone on the other end hang up.


	10. The Secret Menace

**Chapter 10: The Secret Menace.**

"Home sweet home" Ranma muttered, Okinawa Base loomed up in front of the helicopter. It brought back many memories, not many of which were happy. One glance over at the bag in the corner was enough to complete the story. But this time was different, it was worse. X-Com had always had enemies and any operative accepted death as a very real risk if not likelihood. The difference was that Hiroshi hadn't been killed fighting some alien invader, not had he died in some accident instead he had been killed by another man. Another man whose strings were being pulled ultimately by one of their own. Ranma had been forced to kill teammates in the past, it had been one of the hardest parts of the job, but Hiroshi hadn't fallen to alien control, he had stayed true to the end. An end that he didn't deserve and that was a direct result of a deliberate betrayal by one of the men he should have been able to trust with his life.

As the jet-copter touched down with the familiar hiss of cooling jets Ranma finally turned to look at the filth that had broken their trust. Armand was sat in a corner of the passenger bay, tied hand and foot and with a large purpling bruise on the side of his face. He also had Laura's foot on his chest. Nabiki was on the scrambler phone, as she had been since Ranma and Laura had thrown themselves out of the door over the South China seas. It was obvious that Armand had been embezzling more than funds and she was struggling to take possession of all his ill-gotten gains.

As they disembarked Dr Fraser was there to meet them, along with a detail from the security force, led by a black suited Dr. Kodachi. Dr Fraser invited them to join her in going to the briefing room.

-

* * *

-

Meanwhile in the office Jack was facing his nemesis once more, a nemesis he thought he had left behind long ago. Once again dirty nappies invaded his life and turned his orderly existence into a smelly mess. "Tell me again why I'm doing this?" he asked his smirking wife.

"Because Jack its good practise," she replied

"Practise for what? Biohazard removal?" he retorted now holding the heavy bundle at arm's length. "I have paid my dues to society!" he added.

"What's that supposed to mean" she asked, a little off. He looked at her, sudden premonition of doom impinging.

"You. Want. A. Baby?" he said slowly. While in his mind he was screaming "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"Maybe," she said simply. The feeling of doom only got worse.

"You want more than one?" he asked.

"Maybe?" she replied.

"What does 'Maybe' mean?" he asked. "Is that a 'maybe yes' a 'maybe no' or a 'maybe I'm just going to keep teasing you till you go insane maybe'"

"Hmmm. Definitely that one" she smiled.

"Which one" he asked. She just walked away

-

* * *

-

As Sam walked into the briefing room Fraser was leading the trio from the plane into the same room from another door.

"Where's Jack?" Dr Fraser asked.

"In the crèche" she replied pointing behind her. Nabiki finally hung up and went in to see Kimiko and rescue the still grumbling Jack from the latest threat to Earth's security. Meanwhile Ranma made himself at home in one of the chairs, using the polished mahogany table as a rest for his boots. Laura copied him on the other side.

As soon as Nabiki arrived Jack beat a hasty retreat following his wife. He spotted the others sat at the table and then their boots. "Uh-hum," he said.

"Oh yeah," Laura replied, "Officer on deck," she added with a less than half hearted salute.

"Watcha Guv" added Ranma.

"I am your commanding officer" he pointed out as if they were unaware.

"Oh really" Ranma replied, "Nice to meet ya."

"Yeah" Laura added "do you come here often?"

"Mutinous dogs" Jack grumbled sitting down in his place at the table. And then pushing their feet away from his face. "So are you going to tell me what happened in Hong Kong?" Ranma looked at Laura, she shrugged.

"Okay" they said together.

"I knew there was a perk from being in charge" Jack replied.

"In the beginning was the world…" they started together. Jack growled loudly.

"Sorry I didn't catch that private" he said.

"Owch he cut me stripes off" lamented Laura, clutching at her chest.

"Me pips ooo me pips" sid Ranma falling to the floor.

"Clowns" Jack admonished.

"Er guys" Sam said interrupting the 'male bonding' "We do sort of have a debriefing to do."

"Thank you" Jack said waving a hand at her and looking at the others.

"Fine," Ranma started, "We followed your lead to Hong Kong…..

-

* * *

- 

Armand was scared, he was very scared indeed. Before he had secured his place at the head of Marsec he had been a logistics officer in this very base. Even before he arrived he knew where they were taking him, Kodachi's dungeon. The place had a reputation of being as close as you could get to hell and still be alive. It wasn't that the woman was going to hurt him, not physically anyway. Everyone knew that any pain Kodachi let you feel was only because she got off on it. No the dungeon was far worse than that. The Black Rose worked on your whole person, by the time she was finished with people they never wanted to leave their cells, even when she let you go she hurt you.

He had read her file, there was no way any regular service would have let this woman serve them, okay maybe the Israeli's but that was hardly a recommendation. She was clinically psychotic, unable to understand that what she did was wrong in any way, sexually deviant in ways that would have made the Marquis cringe. From the darkness of her own mind Kodachi had built an 'information retrieval' technique that would make a man beg for the rack. Worse still everyone knew that the woman would be enjoying every moment of the pain.

Armand, despite the air-conditioning, was sweating bullets by the time he was thrown into the cell. For a moment he lay there in the darkness, demons that scare small children suddenly seeming very real.

From the darkness came a light, a small flame. As armand watched it illuminated the outline of another person, and reflected off a pair of very intense eyes. Kodachi. Then she laughed and he started screaming.

-

* * *

- 

Jack was sat signing papers, with some of his closest friends around him. The thing was he was sat in the canteen doing it. Finally one asked the question that they all needed to know.

"Why are you doing that here?" Daniel asked.

"I leant Nabiki my office" he replied none too convincingly.

"There's plenty of space in the briefing room," Daniel pointed out.

"Ah but then she could see me" Jack replied.

"And?" asked Daniel.

"Two words," Jack explained "'sign this!' They seem to be her entire vocabulary."

"But" Daniel objected, "isn't that how you normally do your paperwork? Wait until somebody else does it for you I mean."

"Har Har" Jack replied with an ironical smile. "Trust me she's worse than usual. I actually checked one requisition, it was for nearly a ton of silly putty."

"What did she want silly putty for?" Daniel asked.

"I wondered that too," Jack replied, "she said something about limited but sufficient cohesion in microgravities and something about a super freeze crystal lock."

"Ah" said Daniel

"Don't even pretend you know what she was talking about" Jack replied.

"Sure I do" Daniel argued. There was moment's silence

"Well?" Jack asked. Daniel was silent, very aware that all his friends were looking at him.

"Oh come on Daniel" Sam said. "Micro-gravities?" she prompted.

"I get it!" Daniel exclaimed. "emergency sealant for non-atmosphereic vessels." Then he proceeded to get into a discussion with Sam about variations in the formula that would produce better qualities. Jack looked at them for a moment, picked up his papers and went to find somewhere else.

-

* * *

- 

Nabiki was sat in Jack's office, having 'borrowed' it while she was on base. She had left Ranma with Kimi and was trying to catch up on the paperwork she had missed during her too brief holiday. The fact that Jack had done very little of his own was something that Nabiki usually found useful but trawling through it now was really doing her nut.

Suddenly two hands were massaging her shoulders. With consummate skill they targeted the knots in her neck and began to work them free. She could feel hot breath across the nape of her neck and let out a contented moan.

"Thank you anata" she whispered.

"Any time anata" replied a husky voice that was definitely not Ranma's. Nabiki fought the urge to stiffen.

"Kodachi-chan" she said, deliberately using the diminutive. "Not that I object but what brought this on."

"A girl can't do something nice for a woman she 'admires" Kodachi replied, drawing out the last word into a breathy leer. A she spoke she ran a hand down Nabiki's side and started it up her front.

"Kodachi my husband will object" Nabiki said firmly. She could almost hear the pout.

"What if we asked him nicely" Kodachi purred.

"I don't think 'nice' is in your repertoire," Nabiki replied. "I take it Armand wasn't as diverting as you expected?" Kodachi moved away, obviously put out, and sat on the corner of the desk, leaning forward enough to display her well rounded 'character traits'.

Through her lashes she complained "I broke him."

"Broke how?" Nabiki said, concerned that the information he represented might have been lost. Kodachi's sudden smile warned her that she asked the wrong question.

"Well first I-" Kodachi said, madness burning in her eyes like a soul burning in a nighted pit.

"No" Nabiki interrupted, "In what way is he broken."

"Oh just the normal ways" Kodachi said with an expression somewhere between condescension and smugness. "He lies there begging me to hurt him, to hit him, to beat him" With each expression she swayed slightly forwards, relishing the words. "On his knees he begs me to let him serve me, to be used by me. However I desire" Kodachi finished, purring the last word.

Nabiki sat with raised eyebrow, knowing what was coming next and knowing there was little she could do about the madwoman on her desk.

"OHOHOOOHOOHHOOHOOHOHOOHO!" Doctor 'Demento' Kodachi laughed.

"The information" Nabiki asked.

"Oh its all on the transcript" Kodachi said, suddenly switching emotion without any sign of the shift. She pulled a few papers from deep in between her breasts, and handed them to Nabiki with a nonchalant sneer.

"Thank you doctor" Nabiki said taking the still warm papers and beginning to read. It did not look good, this went way beyond one greedy traitor.

"Saotome" Kodachi breathed, "I was hoping you could do something for me in return?"

Nabiki put the papers down, genuinely intrigued, Kodachi did not strike her as someone accustomed to having to ask favours. "Something you can't do yourself Kodachi-chan" Nabiki asked, eyes narrowing as she picked up her coffee.

"Indeed, despite my 'talents" Kodachi said waving a hand to display her body, "I have been unable to locate my plaything."

"You want me to find your toy" Nabiki asked taking another calculating sip.

"Yes she seems to have disappeared quite thoroughly" Kodachi pouted, batting her eyelids at Nabiki.

"And her name?" Nabiki asked while internally telling herself she should have known. The answer however took her completely by surprise.

"Ranko" Kodahi breathed like it was a prayer.


	11. Storm clouds rising

**Chapter 11: Gathering storm**.

"You can't be serious!" Nabiki said aghast. "There is no way that you didn't…"

"OHOOOHHOHOHOHOHOH" Laughed the maniac doctor. "Don't tell me you fell for that ridiculous 'I'm cursed' story." Nabiki nodded tentatively, while moving her chair just a little further away. "Who ever would have believed it. You who is so intelligent in so many other ways falling for a cock and bull story like that. OOHOHOHOOHOHOHOHOH!"

Nabiki suddenly found the wall blocking her escape. "But you were his shrink there is no way you couldn't have known?" Nabiki questioned.

"OH my poor simple peasant child," Kodachi lamented with a superior air. "Of course the two of them tried to deceive me. Many times in fact. They were very good aat it indeed, I hardly ever noticed the drugs they were slipping me, or even the ways they chose to misdirect my attention. Unfortunately for them they were dealing with a master. Or a Mistress if you wish to be correct." She leered.

"No they tried and they tried. Even managing to pull off some very impressive tricks, but I am not some naive little girl that believes in 'magic' I am a scientist, possibly the best the world has to offer. I was not fooled, not for a moment, no matter how many times they poisoned my coffee with hallucinogenic compounds, no matter how many times they rigged up alien projection techniques to attempt to fool me, and no matter how many times they managed to switch for each other even while tied to my table, I was Never taken in. For am I not Kuno Kodachi, Black Rose, scientist unparalleled!"

"Fruitcake unparalleled" whispered Nabiki.

"Thank you peasant" nodded Kodachi, having heard something completely different. "You have been very…diverting…. I shall return" and with that the black rose swept out of the room. Leaving silence and the scent of roses in her wake.

"There is definitely something wrong with that woman" Nabiki sad in what was one of the understatements of the century.

* * *

-

Ranma was sleeping in. This was good. Kimiko was asleep on his chest amd he was happy, warm and at a lovely point between dreams and reality where everything seemed right with the world. This was not a coincidence; long ago he had found this the best way of keeping Kimi happy in the mornings. The fact that it felt so good was pure happenstance. His warm fuzzy thoughts projected off of him and somehow Kimi was able to pick them up. Somewhere deep down he knew he should have been more concerned about this but 'feh' the baby liked it, he liked it, who gave a shit about the science.

As if from very far away he heard the door open quietly, and detected the faint scent of Nabiki's perfume wafting in.

"Ohiyo Anata," He mumbled.

"Freak" she accused, miffed at still not being able to sneak up on him. "Move over, I'm coming back to bed"

"Uh?" asked, sleepily shuffling.

"Just met Kodachi, have to start the day again" Nabiki explained, Maybe it will make more sense this time."  
"U-uh," Ranma agreed, lifting his head and feeling her arms slip around him before settling back into a contented doze.

Nabiki took just one moment to look at her Husband and daughter, lying there with identical contented tiger smiles and then snuggled in a bit closer and let herself join them in the happy land of nod.

* * *

- 

"Ladies and Gentlemen" Nabiki began, "Boys and girls," she added nodding towards Ranma and Laura "We have a problem." The senior team was once again assembled in Jack's briefing room. Nabiki had called them here on what she called 'A matter of some importance.' As usual everyone was in casual barrack dress, grey or blue overalls with coats for the doctors. The normal exceptions were observed, Kodachi in her black and Nabiki in a 'personalised version of the shapeless overall that showed more and fitted better.

"Armand was just the tip of the iceberg." Nabiki continued. "It seems that he was a willing participant in what appears to be a much larger conspiracy. By now most of you will have heard the problems that have started on Cydonia. We have reason to believe that the sabotage is being directed from elsewhere, and that the deliberate targeting of our one priceless resource is no coincidence. Add to that the 'lost' shipment of Elerium that should never have been sent and we have the tip of our iceberg.

"Unfortunately I have more bad news you probably will not of heard," Nabiki continued with ominous coldness "One of the alien human hybrids that we had secured at X-Com Cheyenne has disappeared. Not just any one either, the only one that is missing is the psychic hub. Worse still the 'escape' was covered up by one of our own, and he in turn has met a sticky end."

"Ladies and Gents X-Com has officially been penetrated. Somehow enemies of our organisation have managed to get to people within X-Com and are using them against us. And we have no idea how!"

"As of today we are back on a War footing. Should these attacks continue the chance that we will be ready for the alien Armada are slim to none. This subversion of our people is officially the biggest threat to mankind since the Secret City.

"Questions?" Nabiki finished, throwing the floor open.

"Couldn't Armand give us some clue as to who was behind all this?" Ranma asked.

"He didn't know" Kodachi replied, "If he had he would have told us. Even with the speed the worm snapped we were unable to prevent his contact's abrupt foreshortening."

"Foreshortening?" Jack asked.

"She was found decapitated in a freak storeroom accident," Nabiki explained. "I'll never look at a tin of beans the same way."

"What about the saboteur on Cydonia" Sam asked, "They must have been acting as a sleeper for some time. Presumably they would be further up the network."

"I agree, which is why I am going there personally to ensure that no 'accidents' befall our sleeper before Kodachi has had a word." Nabiki replied, causing the maniac doctor to giggle in quiet anticipation.

When everyone was through shuddering Jack piped up again "I there any chance this is all a leftover of the last war?" Nabiki shook her head.

"All the Aliens in the system were either shut down when the mother brain got hers or exploded and crushed as they fell into the trench. Nothing we have found on any of the stolen systems indicates that the aliens are capable of this level of independent action. If it were one of the controllers then they wouldn't have given up Cydonia so easily." Ranma snorted at the 'easily.' " Sorry Love" Nabiki corrected, "what I meant is that they wouldn't have written off the troops there. Even months after we took control of the base there were still hundreds of drones alive up there, just waiting for orders."

"What about the Nemesis program?" asked Daniel, quietly. The room went quiet. That particular project was about as secret as anything in X-Com could be, nobody even spoke of it if it could be avoided. Nabiki let the silence stretch before she answered.

"It continues on target" was all she said but the room visibly relaxed afterwards.

"Now to more pleasant things," Nabiki said, "I am reliably informed that the mess has just received its first delivery of Martian synth-steak, and I can confirm that it tastes better than we had hoped." The occupants fidgeted for a moment then one person towards the back made a lame excuse and left. This started a flood and soon only Ranma and Nabiki were left. He was looking at her with his big puppy dog eyes.

"Go on" she laughed. He smiled, kissed her and ran after the throng.

* * *

- 

As Nabiki arranged to have all the other CEO's of the various X-Com spin-offs checked for interference things took another bad turn. Presidential change in America had brought the 'Doves' back into prominence and already bad noises were emerging from the corridors of power.

Suddenly Nabiki was torn between continuing as planned to Cydonia or staying to cap the American problems. In the end she had to stay. America was still the single largest supporter of the agency. Even if Nabiki's economic tricks were now accounting for far more of the organisation's income than the UN stipend ever amounted to America represented an important power block. If they came out against the organisation then the power blocs she represented might soon follow and they would have little choice but to abandon the UN all together. There was also the chance the US would try to take what they viewed as their contributions back. There was no way the technology could be trusted to any terrestrial power. There was no doubt in the minds of the top brass of X-Com that the pressure parties on any democratic government would soon cause proliferation. A single ill-advised contract bought by graft and the worst secrets of X-Com could be out.

"Yes Mr President" Nabiki said over the phone, waving Ranma into silence, "I would be more than happy to put together a briefing on the current operations of X-Com."

" We can be there on Tuesday afternoon."

"I'll look forward to it," Nabiki finished. She looked at Ranma, he looked at her.

"Shit!" she said, and meant it.

"Er correct me if I'm wrong but isn't this a little too convenient?" Ranma asked.

"What do you mean" Nabiki asked.

"Smokescreen" Ranma replied.

"Go on" Nabiki said, starting to get the point.

"All these things, they are tying us up, diverting our attention-

"From what is really going on?" Nabiki finished. "But what the hell is going on!" Ranma had no answers, and for the moment nor did she.

"I'll tell Sam" Ranma said.

"Tell Laura too," Nabiki asked him.

"Why Laura?" Ranma asked.

"Because I need her husband for Cydonia" Nabiki replied.

"Why him?" Ranma asked.

"Because he's smart enough for the job and I know I can trust him" Nabiki replied. Ranma nodded.

"Laura's going to be pissed," he informed her.

"Send her too," Nabiki told him. "Its about time she got her own Commando."

"You want to tell her she's an officer?" he asked with faked trepidation. "I can hear her now, 'Och Aye. Oh the shame! Me an oci-fer, what would my dearest departed father say!'" He added in a (bad) fake Scottish accent. It got a smile from Nabiki and that was all that counted.

"We'll need a new babysitter" Nabiki said remorsefully. Ranma stopped.

"Too true, what about Sam" he added.

"Sam?" Nabiki asked.

"She's been hinting at Jack" Ranma explained.

"I'll talk to her" Nabiki said, wondering how she had missed that.

* * *

- 

Far away in one of the most important civil buildings in the world a distinguished looking woman was sat at a large desk. She had just been handed a file by the man opposite her. It was a standard manilla envelope but for two things, on the front were stamped the words "TOP SECRET" and "X-COM: DEEP SPACE."

The contents appalled her, apparently not only had a rogue agency been withholding vital technologies but they were also determined to keep doing so. Here in front of her a mission to another solar system was described, and a meeting with an alien species in deep space. The conclusions were not hard to reach.

"Thank you Colonel this is very 'informative'" she said.

"Just doing my duty Madam Vice President" the colonel replied before being escorted from the room.

Vive president Weir looked again at the folder in front of her, it was everything she feared, and everything she expected. The idiots in the pentagon had handed their entire world over to a completely unelected group of proto-tyrants.

"Damned if I'll let them do this" she swore.


	12. Eagle's Nest

**Chapter 12: Justify your existence. **

Nabiki stepped into the oval office, forcing her face calm. Here she was in the centre of power of the country that was set to dominate the new millennium and about to meet the man who ran that country. Nobody else seemed to be able to appreciate the magnitude of this for her. Ranma had accompanied her on the trip but had remained completely calm as they travelled, even now he was a few steps behind, having snagged some extra sweets from a bowl by the door. Laura had been just as bad saying no more than she was welcome to it.

Her one bit of good advice had come from Laura's husband. "I'm not going to tell you how to handle them but before you get overwhelmed by the experience find out why the white house is white." As Nabiki had stepped out of the helicopter she had stood before that most filmed of buildings and rather than tremble she had looked for the scorch marks. It was only now as she stepped into the inner sanctum that she was starting to feel the pressure again.

In front of her stood arrayed the key players in this hemisphere; General Maynard, the commander in chief of US forces; Elisabeth Wier, diplomat turned politician and the vice president; and finally, sat behind his desk, Henry Hughes, president of the United States of America, in the words of time magazine 'Second only to God and even then only by seniority.'

"Good afternoon" Nabiki said with false openness. "I'm glad we could arrange this at such short notice."

"Yea what she said" added Ranma, pushing the last oval office mint into his dress trousers. Before selecting one of the comfy seats and sitting down. Nabiki had to repress a smirk. If she wanted them off balance Ranma was doing a brilliant job. "Cool!" Ranma replied picking up a mini bronze globe from the table.

"Uh hum" coughed Maynard. "Colonel Saotome?" Nabiki let him field this one too.

"Me or her" he said pointing at Nabiki. "She's in charge I'm just here for the mints." Nabiki could swear she heard Maynard's face crack.

"I think it is customary to greet a senior officer when you enter the room" Maynard all but growled.

"Ah sure" Ranma said, "sorry I didn't know." Then he stood up and saluted Nabiki. "Ma'am," he announced, his turned back shielding his smile from Maynard's face. It was everything Nabiki could do to stop herself laughing out loud. "Seems weird to me," he added "but you should know being a general and everything."

"I think he was referring to himself and the President" Nabiki corrected.

"But they ain't my superior officers" Ranma stated finally getting to the point of his display, "I work for Earth not the USA."

"I think that is what we are here to discuss," interrupted Wier.

"Not really" interrupted Nabiki in turn. "What we are here to discuss is your continued involvement in Earth's defence." She corrected, taking a seat next to Ranma, thus refusing to have anything to do with the desk. Weir and Maynard were left looking more than a little foolish.

The president however didn't get where he was by being upstaged by two political children. "I think that's a great idea," he said, "Lets keep this friendly for now" he added, moving over to the large arm-chair reserved for his use. "Clive," he ordered a nearby aide, "Serve some coffee will you?"

Soon the five of them were seated around the low table on the lounge seats, sipping at coffee and dunking biscuits. Ranma briefly raised his cup to the president in silent toast for the quality of his coffee.

"I get it specially imported" The president said, throwing everyone but Ranma for a loop. "Come from Nicaragua" he added.

"Been there" Ranma replied, finding it on the map. "Hot and nasty!" he opinioned

"I was there with the army" The president added. Neatly establishing his military credentials.

"I was shooting bugs" Ranma replied turning to face the president, "and I lost some very good men in that jungle." The president nodded.

"Never a good thing" he consoled.

"That's where we differ," Ranma said "everyone who died there died for a reason, a cause. We all knew when we signed up that the only way out was feet first. Sometimes things are bigger than any individual. Sometimes dying is the right thing to do."

"I don't mean to interrupt" interrupted Wier deliberately, "But there are some very serious things that have come to light." With that she lay the file on the desk, hiding a triumphant smirk. Nabikiand Ranma both recognised the markings immediately.

"Where did you get that" Nabiki asked forcefully.

"I have my sources" Weir replied, happy to have the upper hand.

"You will tell me" Nabiki said, "before I leave this room." Weir sat back affronted.

"Now now ladies" The president interjected, "friendly remember."

"Sorry Mr President," Nabiki apologised with a small bow, "But the only way she could have got that file is through a traitor in our organisation and we cannot afford to ignore such leaks"

"And we can see why" said Wier still on her high horse. Meanwhile Ranma was flicking through the file. It had been censored, all the names and dates removed but it was clearly authentic.

"What ya want ta know?" he asked amiably to the President.

"Weir says this is clear proof of a conspiracy," the President said, "I am inclined to agree with her."

"A conspiracy how?" Ranma asked.

"Silence" Wier explained, "X-Com has been deliberately hiding technologies from its sponsors and selling the information to friendly companies. That is called intellectual theft."

"Steady Elisabeth," the president warned. "Have you got an explanation?" he asked.

"About what?" Ranma asked. "Do we have interstellar capability, Yes. Are we withholding scientific advancements, Yes" he leant forwards "Are we betraying anyone, No!" Weir spluttered but Nabiki silenced her with a raised hand. "The truth is Mr President," Ranma continued, "we don't tell you lot a tenth of what's going on topside, you just ain't secure." And with that he sat back and drank some more coffee.

"Are you questioning the integrity of the President?" Weir asked flabbergasted. "What arrogance!"

"He's not questioning anyone's integrity, yet" Nabiki interrupted. "What he is saying is that some of what we know would have a major destabilising effect on terrestrial populations. Simply put some of it is capable of changing the very fabric of society."

"For example" the president asked.

"Regen tanks" Ranma responded. All eyes switched to him for an explanation. "Prolonged use of them can cure practically any illness and even actually reverse the cell aging process. Apparently that means that you can live forever if you have one."

"This is exactly what I'm talking about!" Weir exclaimed, standing up. "Technology like that can save millions of lives. There are literally millions of people in this country who are suffering needlessly because you decided to keep that secret.

Ranma was about to respond when Nabiki stopped him with a touch on his arm. Instead she took a small calculator sized box out of her jacket and put it on the table.

"What's that?" demanded Wier.

"Privacy in a box" replied Nabiki, intentionally curt. She let Wier stew for just long enough to decide to ask before answering the unspoken 'how?' "It scrambles active electrons, finely tuned it is capable of preventing any known recording device from doing its job."

"Really?" Maynard said, intrigued.

"No" Nabiki replied, "it works nothing like that but it's a good lie." The others paused to look at her. "It does however stop eavesdroppers and should mess with visual recordings."

"This is the oval office!" Maynard exclaimed.

"Yes, and in this room one president had an affair with an aide" Nabiki said.

"More than one" the president corrected.

"The point is we know they did. The information got out. That is not acceptable," she finished. "Now Ranma you were saying.." she prompted.

"Er yeah," he began "the way it was explained to me is fairly simple. The fountain of youth thing is a commodity that every one on Earth has a right to, if we let it loose too soon then all we will achieve is panic, rioting and economic collapse. The only way the world has to regulate it is by economics, a system I am assured is totally unfair by its very nature. The same day we let the secret out, pharmaceuticals companies collapse, welfare topples, and riots begin. By the end of the week only martial law keeps order and even then they have to promise equal distribution, which bankrupts whole nations and turns millions into migrants heading for where they can get the treatment."

"It doesn't have to be that way" Weir said. "we could save it for the worst cases to start with, hide the knowledge of how its done."

"Imagine you are the secret and this room is the containment, there should be no doors right? The secret is held tight. But it don't work that way. First there's The president here, he's a widower but has what two children?" the president nodded. "Imagine one of them is hurt are you going to tell him he can't help them?" he turned to Wier, "Are you going to tell your own mother she has to die for national security? Or even a boyfriend?" Nabiki could see he was making his point. "So suddenly there are doors, but that's okay they only lead to new rooms, only it turns out they have doors too. And so on until you are standing in the fresh air, and the city is burning down around your ears."

"So we let them die?" Weir said exasperated.

"Yes" answered Ranma. "all of them."

"Who made that your choice?" Weir demanded.

"The agents who died to secure the alien regeneration tanks. The Agents who worked day and night to crack the control codes" Ranma admonished prepared to go on, but Nabiki interrupted.

"The question you should of asked is what makes us a better room" Nabiki informed them, and received a reluctant nod from Wier in response. "For that I would like to show you an example of our security staff, Ranma please stand up." He Complied. "Who was Tupol Kivenski?" she asked him.

"Corporal Tivenski was one of my best agents" Ranma replied.

"Was?" Nabiki prompted.

"He died over Cydonia base, before that he had served for nearly two years. He had a wife and two kids. I am the youngest's godfather.." Ranma answered, pain flickering across his face.

"How did he die?" Nabiki continued unrelentingly.

"I shot him through the back" Ranma replied.

"Why?"

"The aliens got a foothold in his mind. He was compromised." Ranma responded, hiding his regret behind a mask of efficiency.

"Was he the first you killed in this way?" Nabiki asked, relenting a bit.

"Not by a long way" Ranma responded, taking his cue to sit. Nabiki turned back to the others.

"So what?" Wier asked, "Because you have no sense of loyalty that makes you better than us?"

"No" Ranma interjected. "Because we are capable of making the hard decisions. Because we are supremely loyal, because we –"

"Enough" Nabiki interrupted, defusing her husband's rising anger. "What Ranma is saying is that his room has no doors. He and I have a child, we both know that should it come to that he'll snap either of our necks rather than let the aliens use us against the Earth. I love him but I also know that he's capable of killing me." Sh held out her hand for Ranma to hold.

"The universe is a hateful place, it is harsh and unfair. The good guys rarely win. Victory goes to the strong, the resolute not the righteous." Nabiki continued vehemence in her voice. "In your universe doing the right thing is enough, it simply isn't true in the real world!"

"Steady" the president warned. Nabiki took the hint and shut up, collecting herself again.

"This is what I am talking about" Wier said, far from calm herself. "You met three unidentified vessels in deep space. Your people's first reaction was to fight them. To kill. To destroy. What a wasted opportunity, what an irresponsible act. What id they had been friendlies, what if we could have allied with them what if-

"Don't be absurd" Ranma all but shouted. "We are at war! They are trying to wipe us from the face of existence! There can be no peace, no friendly talks. From the moment they came back it was us or them. And I sure as hell ain't gonna let it be us just cuz some Diplomat wasted time talking!"

"Diplomacy is never a waste of time!" Wier insisted back, once more on her feet. "There is always a peaceful solution!"

"Bull!" Replied Ranma, now also standing. "The only peace is the peace of a graveyard."

"The only good alien is a dead alien?" Wier asked sarcastically.

"Damn right!" Ranma asserted.

"They said that about the Japanese too," she replied. Ranma had to resist the urge to hit her.

"People. Please" interrupted the president. "We are trying to be civil here." Both the combatants stopped. Weir retreated to her seat, Ranma bowed to the president and did the same.

"She does raise a significant concern," the president continued after a long silence. "X-Com may not be the best face to show the universe."

"The only thing we need to show the universe is the open end of a barrel" Ranma muttered, Weir waved her hand at him in exasperation.

"While I believe that the work you have done has been in all our best interests," the president began again, "I feel I have a responsibility to those who elected me to ensure we have all the facts." Nabiki nodded, Ranma shook his head. "To that end I am sending a personal representative to assess our involvement and your effectiveness."

"No" said Nabiki, startling everyone else, "I am sorry that is not acceptable."

"Acceptable or not it is going to happen" replied the president.

"We will be more than happy to invite a representative to view our operations" Nabiki said, causing a few raised eyebrows. "But we cannot allow you to arbitrarily 'send' anyone. There is a very important difference."

"Authority" concluded the president. Nabiki nodded.

"Authority," she agreed, "It is essential that we are not seen to be the puppets of any one nation or power block."

"If we have the ability to 'send' an overseer then we are capable of ordering you to receive one." The president explained. "If we can give you orders then you are dependant on our nation."

"Hence the lack of salute" Maynard said, and Ranma nodded.


	13. Attack of the accountant

**Chapter Twelve. Welcome to Mars.**

Welcome to Cydonia Mr. Woolsey" Saotome Nabiki said formally adding a small bow. She had come to meet the UN delegate at the airlock. She was dressed in her combat fatigues, deliberately going for a military look, to back this up she was also wearing a pistol in a shoulder holster. Mr Richard Woolsey, the delegate, was dressed in a borrowed flight suit and looked significantly worse for the wear. The pilots had not given him an easy trip and he was a man used to far more creature comforts than the X-Com craft allowed.

"Actually its Dr. Woolsey" he corrected with an insincere smile. He was tall, in his late forties, balding and bespectacled. He had about him the air of the over-educated but it was mixed with the face of a political pragmatist. Normally he wore expensive suits and was rarely without a tie even on his days off. He prided himself on his efficiency and dedication and quietly hid a real ambition for recognition. He had been assigned this mission as a result of that ambition and was determined to make it a success.

Even from his first look around he was intimidated. His calling was accountancy and politics, and it had in no way prepared him for a trip to space, let alone landing in an alien base. The flight had been a nightmare and the landing worse. Every step brought home that he wasn't on Earth anymore, the lighter gravity playing havok with his balance. He knew that part of the disturbing experience was pure tactical, they hoped to keep him off-balance and quietly slip their dirty secrets by while he looked elsewhere. He also knew it was working.

This base had none of the feel he expected of a permanent settlement. The direction markers were stencilled on the walls which were themselves of uncompromising alien stone. The representative sent out to meet him while indisputably beautiful had a hard cold edge to her that was made all the more unsettling by her complete composure in these surroundings. He shook her hand perfunctorily and kept his eyes scanning the room. Behind her had appeared two other agents who looked every inch the cold hearted killer he had been led to expect. As his eyes swept the area he made out numerous recessed cameras, and more than one weapon barrel.

"Dr Woolsey" Nabiki called to him, beginning to lead him deeper into the complex. "You will no doubt wish to freshen up, Corporal Lancer here will show you to a room that has been set aside for your use." She continued. "I will look forward to meeting you more formally later." And with that she turned away down a side corridor, her own agent in tow. Richard Woolsey turned to his guide and gestured for him to lead on. Soon he was struggling to keep up as he was led though the complex.

"Just how big is this place?" he asked.

"So far its only about the size of a large stadium," the corporal replied "but with the mining it grows larger every day."

"Mining?" Richard asked. The corporal nodded.

"The manufactories here and the orbital workshacks all require a lot of raw materials and the aliens must have chosen this spot for the same reasons," Lancer explained.

"What are you building?" Richard asked.

"All sorts of things Sir," the corporal replied.

"Like what" Richard pried. The corporal hesitated before he answered.

"I'm not sure" he replied, "I know we are making interceptors, rifles, armour and scuttlebutt says a new mass driver cyclotron Is going up, but other than that, well I don't ask."

"You don't ask?" Richard enquired.

"What I don't know can't be tortured out of me" Lancer replied as if such talk was normal.

"And do you expect that to happen?" Richard pressed, a hint of fear rising.

"Nah, we should have enough warning if they are going to take the bas," Lancer offered.

"Warning for what?"

"To set off the nukes and take the bastards with us" Lancer replied with more than a hint of viciousness. Richard looked at him wondering again what drove men to become like that.

"No surrender?" the doctor asked.

"No Way!" the corporal replied, whitening, "If it came to that I'd beat me own brains out. You don't know what they do to prisoners, and if you're lucky you never will!" Wisely Richard dug no further.

* * *

- 

Three days later Richard was ensconced in an office doing some accounts, hindered by the infuriating constant codes. Simply put he had seen less intricate lace. He could smell something big though. The figures were done with an expertise he rarely encountered but they were definitely cooked. There was enough truth here to throw off a lesser man but he could just make out the hint of false patterns.

"I wouldn't bother with them" came a voice, Mrs Saotome. She had walked into his office and sat down without him noticing. Now however he sure noticed her, she had been working out and her coveralls were tied at the waist, revealing a stretch top that was hugging her heaving chest, and that in turn showing a generous amount of cleavage. Richard's brain knew it was no accident but it was hard to tell the rest of his body that. He tried anyway, concentrating on the fact that this naive woman was his opponent in this investigation.

"Why is that?" he asked, tearing his eyes back to her face, her slightly smirking face.

"Because they won't tell you a thing," she replied, "we only keep them around to give infiltrators something to see."

"Oh really," he asked dubiously, "and do you get many infiltrators?"

"None yet" she replied, standing up.

"So where should I be looking?" he asked

"Anywhere you like," she answered, "From the reports I have you have already come to a decision and I have absolutely no interest in helping you back it up." He felt his anger rise, nobody treated him like this.

"Look young lady," he stated, voice raising "I am here as a special envoy of the UN! You have a duty to help me. A duty to the people that founded this organisation and a duty to the people of earth! You will do your duty or I will break you!"

"Sit down Doctor" she said calmly, he hadn't even notice himself stand. "I'll see you at dinner." She added, standing. He slumped into his seat, confused. She opened the door and went to walk out but stopped and turned back to him. "I do have a duty to Earth, I intend to do my duty and you will never raise your voice to me again." Then she was gone.

Richard sat there confused, somehow this girl had got to him, made him lose his comportment. She had made him look like the amateur. The shame of it cut through him like a knife. "Very well" he told himself, "she wants to play hardball. Two can play at that game".

* * *

- 

Most of the command staff had chosen to eat together tonight. They were gathered in the mess hall at a later hour than normal so they could get some privacy. Richard had been told the dinner was to celebrate something or rather and so had put on his dinner jacket for the occasion. When the corporal called for him he proceeded to the hall with a quiet confidence. Not only were dinner parties one of his fortes but under his arm he had just the munitions he needed to deflate that Nabiki woman. He walked into the lounge next to the hall with an extra little bounce in his step, one that quickly faded when he saw the other occupants. They were dressed in a wide variety of costumes, from doctor to engineer, to soldier. The other 'dinner guests' were dressed in their ordinary working clothes, they had no doubt done this deliberately.

"Look out it's the Penguin!" shouted one voice with a Scottish lilt. Richard tried to smile. But failed when another voice responded

"Get him Batgirl!" the man called. Far too many people laughed to leave Richard in any doubt as to where he stood in these people's eyes.

"Forgive my husband and his sidekick," Nabiki said, extending a hand and hiding a smile politely. "And forgive me for not being more specific in my instructions. I had not realised you had brought a DJ with you. I would have imagined you to have needed the weight for far more important things." Richard declined to answer, again forcing a smile. Indeed he had had to leave all sorts of things behind to bring his tuxedo and now she was telling him it wasn't needed he was justifiably miffed.

"Nevermind Nabiki" he replied, internally cursing her and the horse she rode in on. A frown crossed her beautiful face.

"I am sorry Doctor but I think my husband might object to that level of familiarity," she said, apparently sincere, "His mother is very traditional and calling another man's wife by any name without an honourific is very familiar in Japan."

"I am sorry Colonel" he replied with a formal bow, recognising both the ploy and the seriousness of his blunder. Once again she had rattled him and it was really annoying him.

"Have you met my Ranma?" Nabiki asked, no doubt knowing full well that he had been unable to speak to the elusive agent. She spotted him over to one side of the room, drinking from a beer bottle and chatting with a small group of extremely well built soldier types. She beckoned to him and he first put on an expression of pleading and then put his hands together, veritably begging her not to make him. When he started over it was with extreme reluctance. It made Richard very glad indeed to see this woman didn't have the complete control she pretended. At last he was scoring some points. But instead of being put out she laughed.

"You must forgive him" she leaned in whispering "he's not good with strangers."

"Nearly all of them are trying to kill me" Ranma said as he came over. "An' that ain't it an' you know it Anata" he added.

"I'm sorry Ranma," she answered him "but the good doctor here needs some backup or he will end up looking quite silly." Richard recoiled as if slapped, you just couldn't say such things. It just wasn't done. "Now if youll excuse me I'll just check on Kimiko one more time," Nabiki added and then sashayed off.

"Whatcha doc" the man said sticking out a hand "How's it hangin'" he added, breathing alcohol over the doctor. Richard was far more used to this and found his feet by smiling and shaking like a good politician.

"Nice to meet you Colonel" Richard said politely.

"So what sorta doc are ya?" Ranma asked in an attempt at small talk.

"I'm surprised you weren't briefed" Richard replied sniping.

"Nah Nabs don't bother me with shit like that" he replied, once again managing to shock the envoy. "Unless you need killing I don't really need to know that much about you."

"And why would I need that?" Richard asked.

"Cuz you were insecure" Ranma replied with a smile. "Safe Secure Secret or insecure and in the gound."

"So how do you know I'm secure?" Richard asked, trying to get a handle on this man's character.

"She says so" Ranma answered. "She trusts you so I trust you."

"I think perhaps you overestimate the depth of our relationship." Richard replied still trying to gauge the man.

"Nah," Ranma replied "If she didn't trust you would have had an accident already."

"You really think she would kill a UN envoy?" he joked. He reckoned he had the measure of the man already. Like many 'I'm just a soldier' types the man equated blunt with honest and prided himself on his honesty. The type were easy to manipulate, accomplished politicians did it with ease every day.

"Hell yeah" Ranma replied, "You threaten what we built here and she'd choke the life out of you with her own hands." Richard was genuinely shocked, he had assessed her a cold but here was her own husband saying she was capable of treachery and murder. "See its like this doc" he continued "lots of good people gave their lives so that this base could be built, so that Earth could have this chance at survival and them that's left sort of take it personally when anyone threatens their memory."

"Anyone?" Richard asked

"Even me!" Ranma replied a little drunkenly "Some bug-ass alien gets in my head and boom, I'll clean him out with an eight gauge. Richard smiled his secret smile, the amateur had just given him everything he would need to twist him to his cause. A few whispers a dose of jingoism and the idiot would be shouting 'how high.'

* * *

They were called into dinner and for once the doctor was pleasantly surprised, the smells that greeted them as they walked into the hall were divine. He had begun to fear the worst but they had obviously gone to some trouble. They had even covered their tables, he had been starting to think these philistines wouldn't have been able to find a single tablecloth in the whole base. 

He was led to a seat near the centre, unfortunately next to Saotome's wife not him. Nevertheless he could feel his pulse quicken in anticipation of the game to come.

There was a clear ringing noise as Nabiki tapped a spoon off of a glass; "Ladies and Gentlemen" Nabiki began, calling them to order. "Ladies and Gentlemen" she repeated, "and soldiers" she added with a smile, "We are gathered here to commemorate All Hallow's Eve, the night of the dead and the official occupation of this facility. Near this place, not so very long ago, the first free man on Mars took his first steps towards a brighter future. We are gathered to thank those brave souls that made those steps possible," she was interrupted by cheering, "and honour those who paid the final price so the rest of us could live free." Once gain there was a round of cheering. It only let up when Nabiki again rang her glass, "True to the Tradition of X-Com there will be no more speeches, no sombre minutes of silence, no military memorial service. Their absence, their silence is mark enough. Every child born free is a monument to their sacrifice." Even Richard managed to be moved by this.

"Ladies, gents and the rest of you, our toast," she called raising her glass, "X-Com!" Every throat in the place answered her call, repeating the name at the top of their voices.

Then from further down the table came another cry "Alpha undefeated!" which was also echoed by almost everyone.

A challenging cry came from the same side "Bravo, Second To None!" When it too was echoed a sinking feeling settled into Richard's gut.

It was far worse than he expected. The toasts went on for ages, and even continued all through the meal. The food was fantastic, the wine strong even if it was very bland and his company beautiful even if she was a conniving traitor. By the time the main course had been cleared away some of the tables had already been shifted and two idiots were jousting along the top of them with chairs instead of horses and lances. By the time the last course was cleared away his head was splitting from a truly evil headache. So for the first time he abandoned a dinner party early, knowing that he was wrong to do so but sure that his head would never forgive him if he didn't.

As he left he heard the Scottish woman shout "Nice one Gos!" and another round of cheering.

* * *

Unfortunatley for X-Com it was while he was poking around early the next day he finally found a reference to Project Nemesis. 


	14. Decisions that shake the Firmament

** Chapter 13: Reckonings**

"Yes Madam Vice President," Woolsey agreed, "I think I have found exactly what I was looking for." He was talking from Cydonia over a secured line via Okinawa base and the Pentagon. "I can't say too much in case I tip my hand but give me a little time and I am sure I can get the proof we need to shut these cowboys down."

"I'll look forward to hearing from you then" Weir replied. "In the mean time be careful." He hung up and allowed himself a self –congratulatory smile. The Nemesis file had proved a gold mine of information about misappropriation, inside dealing and illegal corporate actions that would bust this bunch of savages and put them firmly back under the control of more responsible men.

The door opened, it was Nabiki, in uniform, and with a hard expression. "I tried to warn you," she said regretfully. Then she stepped aside and two heavies stepped in and reached for him. At that moment he knew he was in over his head. A cold heavy feeling settled in his gut. He had always known this was a possibility but somehow he never believed it would actually happen.

"Ranma tried too," she continued as the men cuffed his hands, "but you weren't even going to ask for an explanation." She stepped aside as the goons lifted him from the room. "You were just going to hand our secrets over to an outsider. I really misjudged you." Behind him the door slammed, sealing her in with his files.

-

* * *

-

Ranma, Nabiki, Laura, her husband and Gos were all sat in Nabiki's office looking at the pile of papers taken from the envoy on a screen watching were the faces of the Okinawa command. Every face held an identical hard expression.

"This is it isn't it?" Gos asked. "The moment we choose." Now he had everyone's attention. "On one path we give up the secret, let him destroy the agency and do our best to work in the new system." There were plenty of emphatic negatives forcefully whispered. "On the other hand we turn against the organisation that spawned us, against the nearest thing our world has to a unified government."

"Whether it is nobler to suffer the slings and arrows" Laura's husband quoted.

"What he said" added Jack.

"This sucks" said Laura, punching a vibro-knife into the desk.

"There has to be another way!" Sam said over the phone.

"We just can't kill our way out of this one" Gos said, "and the truth is his mind is strong enough that anything we did would break far too soon to be any use."

"I really thought he was better than this" Nabiki said regretfully. Suddenly she was aware of Ranma's intense, thoughtful stare. She looked back and when Gos started to talk he hushed him. "What is it Ranma," she whispered, "have you got something?" Finally he relaxed.

"Nah, wouldn't work" he said, she slapped his arm.

"Tell me hero," she told him "Maybe I can make it work." He looked at her for a moment then relented.

"Its fairly simple," he started, "the thing is you aren't usually wrong about people, so if you say he's smart enough to see it from our view then we could try telling him it."

"And then what?" Laura interrupted Scottish accent all the more pronounced because of her ire, "We, in classic evil overlord style, tell him our master plans and then what?"

"He comes round or" Ranma replied quietly, "or I make sure he can't talk." Nabiki considered it for a moment.

"Not good enough," Sam said. "If he suddenly goes quiet now Earthside is bound to realise something is fishy."

"Tell them too?" Ranma queried.

"Why not just take out an add' on the news" Laura complained. "We Cannot Trust them!" she said emphatically.

"Hayes" Nabiki said, getting everyone's attention. "We tell Hayes, and then let the cards fall as they may."

"Why would he be any better?" Laura demanded.

"Because he was a soldier, because he is smart and because we have no choice" Nabiki answered, frustration showing.

"We go it alone," Laura argued, "Screw them. We don't need a single one!"

"And then what" added her husband quietly. "When they try and shut us down we fight back. When they object we threaten them with annihilation?"

"Yes dammit," Laura retorted "whatever it takes!"

"You ready to launch a coup for Earth?" he asked generally. There were a few headshakes but Ranma remained still. Laura leapt on this.

"Ranma, you can't be serious with this," she pleaded, "Tell them!"

"I'm sorry Nabs," Ranma replied, "Laura does have a point." The woman in question nodded. "Even if we did sort it this time what about next time? What if the Africans want to know? How many more Armand's does it take?" There was silence.

"Ranma we have to try" Nabiki said quietly, "we can worry about next time afterwards. But right now this makes sense." She added sadly.

"And if it does go wrong then we can blow them all to hell!" Laura's husband offered.

"We'll need to give them psi-protection" Gos blurted, suddenly everyone was looking at him. "Even if this works we'll have to watch them for ever more just in case an Ethereal agent tries to steal them and steals us too!"

"Then we'll do it!" Nabiki decided. "But I want a plan B from you three" she said pointing at the three front-line agents" then she trned to the screen "and you can find plan C"

"What's plan C" asked Jack.

"You tell me" Nabiki told him.

-

* * *

- 

Richard Woolsey Phd was sat in the empty cell they had put him in, naked and very afraid. When they had first taken him he was determined to bear up and not give them the satisfaction but the hours had gone by and now all he wanted was to get out of this alive. It wasn't that he was scared of anything in particular but there was something about this cell that seemed to ooze fear straight into his brain.

When the door opened he was ready to beg for his life. Instead the guard handed him a grey jumpsuit and helped him get into it. He even gave him a bottle of water to drink. "Sorry about that doc," the man said apparently sincere, "That room gives me the creeps just standing outside it."

"Why, what's the room for?" Richard asked.

"We haven't ever used it before," the man replied "But the aliens used to keep 'projects' there.

"Projects?" the envoy asked, desperate for more conversation.

"The aliens don't kill you straight away if they can help it. They have this fetish for surgery, for pain. One of the docs even says that some of them feed off pain and misery. That room is where there kept subjects between sessions."

"Subjects?" Richard asked, sweating for no reason at all.

"Mostly animals" the guard replied "but only mostly."

"Were they really that bad?" Richard asked.

"They ARE really that bad and worse doc" the man replied. "Don't be fooled into thinking that they are gone for good, or that there aren't billions of them out there ready to throw you in working rooms like that." The doctor was shivering now. "Look if you can walk Colonel Saotome wants to see you."

"Which one?" Richard asked.

"Nobody calls Ranma by his rank," the guard replied, "he doesn't like it very much."

"Oh" Richard replied and was led away to a meeting that would change his universe.

* * *

- 

The Room was brightly lit and had a Mars view through a small window. It had a large table-like construction in the middle, chairs and a tall tube with a floating ball in it. It also contained Saotome Nabiki and a stack of papers.

As he walked in Richard was aware that he was still scared. It showed in his shuffling gait and his pale face, and he was sure it would show in his voice.

Nabiki for her part was stunned by his appearance, a few shot hours in a cell and the man looked twenty years older and more than a little crazy. For a moment she considered abandoning the whole plan but the die was cast now and everyone just had to wait and see how it panned out. She also made a note to have psi-ops check the cell out again.

"Doctor Woolsey" she began, waving a hand to offer him a seat, "we have come up with an alternative to your death."

He took the seat gratefully, feeling very old and unsteady. The tone of her voice was not apologetic, dashing his most ferverent hope. But it sounded very much like she was offering something else. Then he twigged it, she was trying to turn him! Damn her to hell but there was no way he would turn, screw the cell, screw the fear he was a man and he would die like one!

"I will never help you" he hissed, straightening his back. "I am a man of principle and I find what you are doing here utterly repugnant!" If he had been a man for dramatics he would have spat.

"I am afraid once again you judge us before hearing a word we have to say" Nabiki lamented with real remorse. "That is practically the only thing that will persuade me not to try to save this situation."

"Ha" he sneered, "I think it's a little late for that! When the UN hears you will be cut off. By kidnapping me you have dammed your whole organisation!"

"Really?" she asked, handing him a folder. He was intrigued enough to open it. Inside it held details of a company called Megapoll. He had heard of them of course, another one of the high risers using breakthrough technology to make better manufactures. It took a few seconds to make the connection. The break-through technology was alien based, and the company a front. He looked up at Nabiki who handed him another file. This one was even worse, it was O'Neil Cybersystems, and they had blown almost all their competition out of the water with an amazing new way of doing computers. Most of America had at least one of their products in their home and their reach extended to the four corners of the globe. Here in black and white was the proof that it too was a front for this rogue organisation.

"Okay" he said with a slight quaver. "I'm scared, what does this mean?" Nabiki didn't answer, instead she just dropped a dozen more files onto the stack in front of him. He sorted through them. He quickly realised he didn't recognise all the names but those he did concerned him even more. All were major players in the advanced technology markets, ranging from pharmaceuticals to transportation, from psychology texts that were rewriting the books to mining companies. A shiver ran down his spine.

"Is this all?" he asked. She shook her head, his hands clenched on the desk. "What are you going to do?"

"That all depends on you," she answered. "My friends and I met a few hours ago and we decided to take a risk," she explained taking a seat. "We are going to let you in on the secret."

"What secret?" he asked, intrigued.

"All of it" she replied ominously. Then she turned her seat and pointed to the tube. "This is what the aliens use for entertainment. It is capable not only of true three dimensional rendering but can actually project the emotions shown on the screen. Fortunately we won't be switching that bit on."

"What are you going to show me?" he asked, trepidation returning.

"Alien mission logs" she replied, switching it on. "And then Surgical logs, and then projected achievements."

As the machine hummed into life the cold feeling in his belly returned. He was soon to be glad he had nothing in his stomach.


	15. Night Errant

**Chapter 15: A Night Errant.  
**

As the 'briefing' ended Richard slowly rose to his feet. He was sick to his stomach and his mind was busy rebelling against what he had seen. The corporal was right Richard had been better off before he knew the details. Thousands of living breathing human beings tortured for amusement, slowly carved up, or fed to vicious larvae while they were still alive, still screaming. He had seen the truth in her eyes, had seen the real emotions in her face and had seen the tears and shaking as the larvae fed.

She had stopped the parade with a flick of a switch and a pronouncement that it was enough for the day and they would resume tomorrow. He welcomed the relief nut knew he wouldn't sleep tonight, and was having doubts he ever would again.

"We'll start aagain in the morning at oh-eight hundred local time" she had pronounced and waved him towards the door.

No sooner was he gone than Ranma stepped into the room, somehow knowing she would need him. Without a word he wrapped her up in his strong arms and kissed her gently. She let the tears flow and he stood there keeping her safe in the universe of his embrace. As the sobbing subsided he lifted her up into his arms and without a word carried her to their room.

He didn't let go of her till the morning.

A corporal led the way back to his room. Unaware of his surroundings he had stumbled blindly to his room and was now lying on his bed trying to shut out the screaming. As he lay there, still clothed in his borrowed coverall he wondered how the soldiers coped. How did they stay sane knowing what awaited them if they fell behind.

There was a polite knock on the door. Richard immediately leapt up suddenly afraid that Nabiki had changed her mind and he was being sent back to the cell. The silence stretched out.

"You awake doc?" came a voice he only barely recognised.

"Yes" the doctor tried tentatively, resisting the urge to give a sarcy answer.

"I've got some ten-year-old medicine here," the voice, which he now recognised as the Scotswoman's husband's, added. He opened the door and indeed there stood the tall Englishman, holding a bottle of scotch. "Permission to administer treatment?" the man asked. The doc only nodded. "I still remember the first time they showed me that lot," the English commando said, opening the bottle and looking around for cups. "Scared the crap out of me." He added giving up and taking a pull straight from the bottle before offering it to the envoy. "I'll tell you what Jack told me. It won't make it better, it won't make it go away but just for tonight it'll help you not care."

Richard nodded and took the bottle before knocking back a belt of his own. The whisky was good and the warmth spread through his body, immediately banishing a lingering cold. He took another belt and passed the bottle back.

"You've got some questions" the man said. The doc nodded. "Questions you don't want to ask Nabiki?" again Richard nodded. His guest took another slug and said "Fire at will."

"Was it true" Richard asked, studying the man in front of him.

"That and much more." The man replied, "They don't tend to concentrate on the picture they film, the machine is really meant to record the pain." The doc swallowed and reached for the bottle.

"You've seen this yourself?" Richard asked. His companion nodded.

"Too many times for comfort," the Englishman expanded. "Though twice it was worse than any other times."

"Why?"

"Because I knew the faces," he explained.

"Who were they?" Richard asked.

"The first time was a girl named Sakura," he said with a look of pain flickering across his face. "She was psi-ops, and part of the first Beta-Commando." He reached for the bottle and took another drink before continuing. "I was fresh in from the British forces and not qualified for active duty but even then I had noticed her. She was an angel in human clothing. You know one of those people who is always happy, helpful and bright. She was a little ray of sunshine dancing through our darkness. I guess I loved her, a lot of us did.

"Beta went out on what was supposed to be a small op. No more than five bugs and a burnt wreck. It didn't work that way. The team was bounced even before they left the ship.

"By the time Alpha arrived on a rescue op all that was left was gore. They had even taken the bodies. You can see the mission tape but I wouldn't if I were you; they had repainted the inside of the skyranger with bits of my friends. But the worst was to come.

"I transferred to Alpha to complete my training and with them we busted a base wide open. The place was the normal version of hell on earth, bodies in jars, on tables, still twitching some even screaming. It was only as I turned a corner I recognised one of the 'bodies' there was Sakura, stripped of skin and flesh completely sown one side of her body. I could see her lungs being inflated by their machine. Worse I could see her eye staring at me with recognition in it. She cried one last tear and I scattered her brains across the room." As he ended he took another long drink. "I killed my angel, and it hurts to this day."

"Is that why there's an angel on your commando's symbol?" Richard asked.

"Maybe," the man replied, "But don't you dare suggest it to the wife."

"As if I don't know" came a voice from the door. "Can I join you?"

"Please" said the envoy, offering her the bottle.

"No thanks," she said pulling a face, "that stuff's bleurgh!" She also pulled a bottle of vodka from behind herself though. As she sat she wrapped an arm around her man, idly running her hand across his shaved hair.

"So what was the second time?" Richard asked.

"Remember the feeding pool?" he asked, Richard shuddered and nodded. "The second time it was Saotome Nabiki on the wall and I had a really good view because I was next to her." Richard's mouth dropped open.

"You mean?"

"For five days" he agreed.

"And she?"

"Was right there next to me" he answered.

"Holy shit" Richard swore, and he rarely did. For a moment silence reigned. "So is that typical?" he asked.

"What, hanging on a wall for days?" the Englishman joked. "No most of the time they make us work around here."

"How can you joke about it?" Richard asked, genuinely incredulous.

"Therapy and the love of a good woman" he replied.

"Good answer" Laura said, but tell me where she is so I can knock her block off." He just leant down for a kiss.

"So is that normal?" Richard asked, "The pairing up thing?"

"Sort of," Laura replied. "In the beginning they tried to stop us but it just wasn't worth the effort." She took another drink, "It started off with a few people sneaking into other people's beds for comfort. Even Marines need to be held sometimes. The shrinks found out first of course but as far as they were concerned it was good for us."

"Sexual healing" her husband joked, getting a dead arm for his effort.

"As the brass wised up they just let it happen." The Scotswoman continued.

"You've got to remember, we aren't an ordinary force. By the time I joined X-Com I was already a veteran of two wars and several 'peace keeping' actions." The husband took over, "every active agent is trained to a professional level that is unhuman. We are about as elite as it gets and that includes being able to tell the difference between personal and important."

"Ow" Richard answered, at the same time noting his bottle was half-empty. "Where does Ranma fit into all this."

"Simple" Laura said, "He's the core the rest of us orbit. He will probably never know how good he is at leading people, at making them more than they ever dreamed possible but he manages anyway." Richard raised a questioning eyebrow, either that or he was off his face.

"He has this way about him" Laura continued, "He acts like miracles are easy and when you follow him suddenly they are. If that man told me to headbutt the moon out of orbit I would try, and I would probably succeed."

"Wow" Richard offered, "Quite a guy?"

"Yeah but mines better," she argued, "I'm biased of course, but hey it's a woman's prerogative."

* * *

- 

Ranma was awake long after Nabiki finally fell asleep. The truth was he just plain didn't want to move. He was at an awkward angle but he was lying there in bed with the most amazing woman the world had ever made and their own little miracle. The woman who owned his heart, and their child. Just that phrase was still enough to give him the shivers. He was a husband, a father; just the idea of him having a family was completely alien to him. His young life had been empty of anything approaching familial feelings and after that he had spent years expecting to end his days in pain and hurt having left nothing behind but memories. Instead he had come to realise that he had a real chance to survive through this one, grow old and die peacefully in bed surrounded by descendants.

The idea was more than a little unnerving, but right now he just didn't care. Everything was alright with the universe lucky enough to have his wife and daughter in it.

So he lay there soaking up the warm comfort of their bodies and holding them gently in hands that could crush rocks. And he had a huge smile on his face.


	16. Nemesis

**Chapter 16: The way forward?**

"Cheers" Richard said to his drinking buddies. Once again they were sat in his room 'unwinding' after the day's viewing.

The Second day was not as bad for him as the first. They moved from the aliens' atrocities to the x-com initiatives to defeat them. For twelve hours Richard was immersed in the life and death struggles of the commandos that X-com sent to do battle. He saw the early disasters, the aftermath of the attack on the original base, he saw the fear and despair. And then he saw hope, he saw the soldiers of X-com pull themselves up from the darkest pits and keep kicking. He saw beaten and broken men go that extra mile. In those twelve hours he saw more selfless acts of courage than he thought had ever existed in Earth's history. From the rookie who dived in the way of a plasma burst to save his superior officer to the injured agent who literally crawled the last few yards to the enemy command centre, trailing bits of himself behind him, before setting off his grenades. All the way through he saw the resolve. Every single face had it, the unshakable resolve that failure was not an option, that they were part of something larger, that no price was too high.

Richard could see that the couple with him were more affected than him today and without thinking about it resolved to do what he could to ease their pain as they had done for him the day before.

"I see what you mean about Ranma" Richard said. "He really is something else"

"Sure is" replied Laura.

"Who was the Chinese girl?"

"That was his first 'wife'" Laura replied. "She died"

"I saw," Richard confirmed.

"The question is do you understand?" Laura pressed. There was a few seconds silence.

"Yes I think I do" he replied. "I mean not everything, I still couldn't do this" he said waving his hand around. "I guess that's the real problem, we are just not used to people without ulterior motives. You people here are driven beyond what we can understand." Laura and her husband nodded, prompting him. "I mean even after going through all of that you still keep putting your heads back into the tiger's mouth. That takes a sort of courage I don't think I want to have."

"What can I say we're the best!" Laura said imitating Ranma's drawl. Which got a laugh from hr husband and a look of confusion from the envoy.

"So what's next on the list?" he asked with some trepidation.

"I can't say" Laura replied. "and I still don't think you have a right to know."

"Why not?"

"Because Nemesis is about as secret as it gets" the Englishman answered, getting hit on the arm for his effort. "Hey he finds out in six hours time anyway what's a little forewarning going to hurt."

"What's Nemesis?" Richard asked, remembering the hidden file, and his suspicions of embezzlement.

"We can't say" Laura replied, looking at her husband pointedly. "nut you will find out tomorrow."

"Sir its time to wake up!" came the corporal's hateful call. The next day was not a welcome addition to Woolsy's life. Whatever that local moonshine they had been drinking was if sure left a memento to remember it by. Richard had the hangover from hell.

* * *

Nevertheless he was up and dressed, telling himself that he was a professional and that he could do this. From his room he was shown to a shuttle hangar, and he noted that he was guarded as he moved. As he stood waiting at the shuttle he was joined by the people he now considered the movers and shakers in this organisation. There was Gos, head of Psychic Operations and by all accounts a genius in his own right; Laura, probably the hardest woman he had ever met; and the Saotomes. All the agents were dressed in flight suits and he was quickly helped into one. 

Without a word they climbed into a very stealthy looking shuttle and prepared for lift off. Richard noted that Laura was showing no sign of the previous night's drinking and queried this.

"My slacker husband is having my hangover for me" she laughed. Then she nodded at the screen set onto the partition wall. "Keep an eye on that" she said "you'll get the view millions of kids would kill for."

"I never wanted to be an astronaut" Richard objected. Laura looked at him like he was nuts.

"Why not?" asked Ranma, butting into the conversation.

"When other kids were building things I was devising filing systems for my bricks" Richard explained. "One year my dad built me a box cart" Richard continued with a wistful smile, "I told him that next time I would rather have the boxes."

"You are weird!" Ranma said, ever the diplomat.

"So what about you" Richard asked, "what did you want to be when you were young?"

"A man amongst men" Ranma replied, in Japanese and then in English.

"Why?" Richard asked.

"Cuz otherwise my mom was gonna cut my head off" he replied as if such things were everyday. Then they were bursting for orbit. The acceleration threatened to rip Richard's guts out of his ass and when they levelled off he was left feeling completely mixed up."

"Kami I love zero gee" Ranma intoned, unbolting himself. Then he drift-bounced his way up the compartment to go and bug the pilots. Richard spotted Nabiki shaking her head at him. She saw his interest and explained.

"Can't even tie him down."

"Just pray Kimi takes after you" Laura added and Nabiki immediately put her hands together in a mock prayer. It was the first time he had seen her taking part in the horseplay and all of a sudden he realised that in her own way she was every bit the soldier the rest of them were. She just fought in a different arena.

"I want to apologise" he said to Nabiki. "I honestly had no idea…"

"Its alright doctor" she replied, "we knew that someone like that would come sooner or later. I am just glad it was you and not Wier.

"What's wrong with Elisabeth" Richard asked.

"She's a pinko" Laura informed him, rather unkindly. "All 'save the whales' and no save the country."

"That really isn't fair" Richard disagreed. Laura looked sceptical.

"Oh come on" Laura argued, "she's what my husband would call a 'Bongo-bongo-Wishy-washy-lefty-liberal-greenpeace faggot!' but then he's a little to the right of Gengis Khan" Richard just chortled.

"Actually she surprised me" said Nabiki. "We expected her to be hostile but she acted like this was personal and she bought the file she was given hook line and sinker."

"I am afraid she isn't the only one" Richard said "even before I saw the Nemesis file I already knew what it would say." It was only after he finished that he noticed he was suddenly the centre of silent attention. "What?" he asked.

"What Nemesis file?" Nabiki asked very precisely.

"The one that I found on your desk after the 'dinner,'" he answered, starting to worry.

"There is no Nemesis file" Nabiki replied.

"Of course not, I understand" he answered

"No you don't" replied Nabiki. "There is no file because nobody has ever written one. Whatever you saw was cooked up by the shitting sab"

"Sab?"

"We have a saboteur in the base" Laura explained. "Nobody has been able to catch him in the act yet and we have really tried."

"Can't you just do the mind thingy?" Richard asked.

"Doesn't work like that" interrupted Gos, sounding peeved. "Everyone always assumes it does but it just doesn't"  
"Sorry" said Richard, suddenly taken aback.

"We Cannot read minds!" Gos informed him. "psi-ops is a bit like talking. You can make the subject hear you, make his body react but you can't hear him unless he's broadcasting himself."

"So no mind reading?"

"None," Gos replied, "The only way to get close is to force a person to think out loud, or convince them to think what you want."

"If you want to know what they think you have to tell the to think it first?" Richard surmised.

"Something like that" Gos replied

"Guys we are coming up on Nemesis now" Ranma said over the coms. "You wanna send the doc up for a look?"

"Doctor" Nabiki offered and Richard's curiosity wouldn't let him refuse.

He scrambled his way upwards to the cockpit and pushed his way through the hatch only to be caught by Ranma and unceremoniously clipped to the wall. He nodded his thanks, the last thing he wanted to do now was distract the pilots. The cockpit was remarkably bare, only a few consoles and maybe a dozen switches. The pilots apparently controlled the ship with two single-handed grips each.

"Cyber systems" Ranma explained. "Real funky stuff, increases reaction time nearly tenfold." Richard nodded. And looked out of the wrap around windows. For a few moments all he could see was the vast curve of the Milky Way and then one of Mars's moons swung into view, and they appeared to be heading straight for it. Unconsciously he turned his head away slightly expecting impact. It was only when id didn't come immediately he started to work out the real size of the moon before him. It may not have been as big as even Earth's but it was still massive beyond his frame of reference. Even so it soon blotted out the rest of the view, and still they headed straight for it.

Again he was getting worried, especially when the shuttle did not slow at all from its breakneck speed. Instead it plunged straight into a crater, and through the floor of it.

Beyond was a vast cavern, illuminated by hunrdeds of lights, that in turn illuminated a vast structure under construction. It was only when Richard caught sight of the four vast engines that he finally understood what he was seeing. A huge battleship.

She was, like the rest of X-Com, all functionality and deadly purpose without concession to aethetics. Despite this the vessel was sleek and had every appearance of a hunter. Form had melded with function to produce a work of stark beauty and killer intent.

"That is _Nemesis_" Ranma told him.

* * *

- 

"Welcome to the bridge" Nabiki told him. They were all taking a tour of the vast ship and Richard was struck speechless by the size of it. He had been aboard smaller aircraft carriers.

"The Nemesis is in fact a compromise" Nabiki continued. "Some argued for a ship that could sneak under the aliens' radar and others argued for a full scale planet buster. This is what we settled on. She has hold space for smaller stealth vessels and packs a punch that should put almost anything else to shame."

"When she's finished she'll carry four flights of interceptors, and two brace of recon craft. She will have armament to not only defend herself but also outfight most military installations we expect to meet. Her crew complement, being secretly trained as we speak, will be in excess of a thousand people. Her engines will be the largest and most powerful ever to be made by a factor well over a thousand. She will reach further and faster than nay human has ever travelled before.

"Why?" Richard asked, dreading the answer.

"Her name is Nemesis and she is revenge for the fallen," Nabiki replied.

"We are going to the bug home systems and when we get there we are going to kick some serious Alien ass" Laura said, bloodthirsty light shining from her eyes.

"But won't that just antagonise them more?" Richard queried.

"How do you figure they can get more annoyed" Ranma asked. "They already want to enslave and or kill every single one of us and turn our world into a breeding ground for mutant experiments."

"But won't they retaliate too?" Richard asked, still not believing that they would consider this.

"No war was ever won on the defensive" Nabiki said ominously. "And we need the time this represents."

"I don't understand"

"Right now the aliens that sent this expeditionary force to Mars are massing a full scale invasion force. Simply put we do not have the time or technology to build enough weapons platforms to defend our home. If they come when they plan then they will win." She fell silent for a long minute letting the news sink in.

"This is the big secret," she added, "The human race as we know it is less than a year from extinction. So we are going to launch a pre-emptive strike and buy ourselves the time we need to mount a real defence."

"Won't whoever goes out in this be vastly outnumbered and out gunned?" Richard asked.

"Yes we will" answered Ranma.

"But that has never stopped us before" Laura added. Richard looked at the people around him and suddenly realised the next truth, all of these people were going on this fool's errand. He was looking at the backbone of the ship's command staff.

"You'll all be killed," he whispered.

"Damned if we do screwed if we don't" swore Laura.

"I for one won't go quietly," Ranma told him, "When the reaper comes he'll have to fight for it."

"So this isn't about revenge?" he asked dubiously.

"Of course it is" Nabiki told him, "but it's also about keeping our light burning in the long night."

* * *

+ 

Laura's husband met them at the airlock and fell in beside them. His concern was plain on his face and Richard took the time to reassure him that everything was fine. But even as they stepped back into the high triangular ceilinged rooms of the Mars base's surface levels Richard's mind was racing, trying to take it all in. Maybe that was why when the others reacted he failed to.

A 'Whip-Crack' noise shattered the air and suddenly a heavy form knocked him flat. As he hot the ground the wind was knocked clear out of him. Through tearing eyes he saw the blood that covered him and traced it to the person who had knocked him down.

Lying across his body was Laura's husband, eyes forevermore staring at some point far beyond mortal sight. Richard never heard the chase, never saw the assassin caught and never cared, because here was his first friend on this base, one of his first friends ever, and he had just died so that he could keep breathing.

Hot tears ran down his face and the last shred of the unconnected accountant died with his friend.


	17. The price of betrayal

**Chapter 17: Aftermath.**

"PISS OFF!" Laura screamed as some shitting idiot knocked on her door. Why couldn't the bastards just leave her alone. She was sat in the darkness of their room, bottle in one hand, glowing vibro knife in the other. She didn't know how long she had been here but the bottle was all but empty. It hadn't helped, the pain was still there. A gaping hole in her heart where it used to be whole, swallowing everything and matching the darkness of her room with an abyss inside.

The idiot didn't take the hint and was actually trying the door. Tough shit it was locked and there was no way in hell that she was going to open it.

The door crashed open with a splintering thunderclap. She leapt to her feet to kill the bastard who dared… It was Ranma, he knocked her drunken thrust aside with an almost negligent slap and pulled her into a hug. She hit him, clawed him and wailed her hate. He just held on. She pleaded, he held on. Finally she begged and still he hugged her. At last she finally broke, and fell sobbing into his embrace. He carried her over to the bed and pulled her onto his lap, never letting go, quietly hushing her and rocking her like a baby. His hand stroked her hair and he whispered caring noises into her ear.

"Why" she whispered through her tears. He didn't answer.

"Its not fair" she cried.

"I know" he whispered.

"No you don't" she objected, "How the hell could you!"

"You're right, I don't know nothing about anything" he whispered. " Kami, I'm probably the thickest person on base and give me enough time an I'll say somethin' ta prove it; but for the now, if there is anything in my power…..all you have to do is name it" She just squeezed him tighter and cried all the harder.

"Just hold me" she answered.

"That I can do." And he did, all night long.

"Nabiki's gonna kick your ass!" Laura whispered as she lay there with her head still in his lap. The dawn had woken her and just for a moment she had allowed herself to believe it was all a nightmare. But it was not her husband holding her, and it never would be again. The pain came back like a broadsword through her chest.

"Huh?" he asked, intelligently as always.

"You spent the night in another woman's bed berk" she told him, with the hint of a smile curling her lip.

"Shit," he answered. "Never mind, at least it'll be quick. She just ain't got your evil streak."

"Yeah right?" Laura replied, "she'll cut your nuts off and serve em to you."

"well with her pissed at me I won't have any use for 'em anyway." He answered, and again managed to raise a hint of a smile.

"I want to kill him" Laura said.

"I know," Ranma replied, "and I made them promise to keep him alive till you were finished with the fucker."

"Good!" she swore.

"If you're awake, any chance you feel like eating?" he asked. She sat up a bit,

"Not really" she said, looking around. "Where's Callum?" she asked suddenly alarmed.

"Nabs came and took him to ours," Ranma replied, "figured the two of you could use your sleep." Laura nodded, wiping the tears away with her arm, and looking at him. She immediately spotted the knife sticking out of his shoulder.

"Shit" she said, "Did I?"

"Yeah but no biggie" he replied. "Might even get me some sympathy from Nabs."

"Yeah right" she replied, pulling him round to look at the wound. "You know how much she hates it when you let yourself get hurt!"

"It was in a good cause" he replied, looking into her face with real care on his. She sniffed again.

"She'll still kill ya" she said. He tried to shrug and winced as pain shot through him. This time she did laugh out loud.

"God you ARE stupid!" she said.

"Yup!" he answered, "Wonder where I picked that up from."

"Hey" she shouted back, hitting his good arm.

Then they both looked up as Gos appeared at the door. Laura immediately noted that both her and Ranma had reached for guns that they weren't wearing.

"Bad time?" Gos asked, sheepishly.

"Nah" Laura replied, "I was just kicking this idiot out of bed."

"Don't blame you" Gos replied "he snores something rotten."

"I do not!" Ranma objected.

"Like a flaming lumberjack" Gos argued. "Now I think you better do as the lady says, huh." Ranma looked back at Laura who nodded and then painfully stood up. Being sat all night in that one position had done him no favours at all. HE limped on his dead leg to the door and was just leaving when Laura called after him.

"Ranma" she said "thanks." He gave her his best smile back and limped away.

"He's hamming it up for sympathy" Gos stated.

"Course he is" Laura replied, "Now how about you help me find some clothes."

"Depends" Gos said.

"On what?" she asked.

"If you've got another knife," he replied with a half smile.

"Ha Ha" she offered sarcastically.

* * *

- 

Some hours later she was sat in the canteen with a warm cup of tea and an uneaten bowl of porridge. The tears were still not far off but were rapidly being supplanted with a cold rage.

"Don't feel like eating?" Nabiki asked, putting Callum into a baby seat next to her and pulling her own baby around onto her lap as she sat down. Laura picked her baby up and clutched him to her chest, shaking her head.

"Don't blame you," Nabiki observed, "That stuff is vile." Laura cracked a little smile again, but the other emotions quickly dragged it away and murdered it.

"What is it with you people?" she demanded, "everyone is a shitting comedian today!"

"We care" Nabiki said after a moments silence.

"I know" said Laura deflating. "Its just…." Nabiki reached out a hand and squeezed her shoulder.

"You don't have to say" Nabiki said, "You're among friends" The other girl pulled the administrator into a hug, careful of the children but tight enough to express her feelings.

"Forget friends, you're family" she whispered. And Nabiki nodded. As the smaller girl pulled away to feed her baby Laura could see tears in her eyes too.

They sat for a while in silence and only looked up as Richard came in. He looked terrible. His clothes were unironed, what hair he had uncombed and his eyes puffy and bloodshot. Laura beckoned him over from where he was hovering.

As he took his seat both women could see that he too had been crying. Somehow they didn't resent him his emotions. Instead Laura reached out a hand and briefly clutched his. The relief that lit up his face was a pleasure to see.

"He was probably afraid you'd stab him" Nabiki whispered.

"Nah," Laura replied, "he's too pathetic to kill." Richard, despite being shattered from one of the worst nights of his life, saw the horseplay for what it was; acceptance. This grieving widow somehow had found the strength to support him in her time of pain. The realisation brought the tears back with a vengeance. He squeezed the hand back with all his might, like it was a lifeline for a drowning man.

"Talking of stabbing," Laura began, "I may have sort of stabbed you husband a bit."

"He's tough, he'll get over it" Nabiki replied. "Teach him to be more careful next time."

**- **

* * *

- 

Technician Johnson was in a world of pain. When hey had caught him they had not been gentle. He had been sure that the reports of Saotome's skills were exaggerated but now he had proof. In the time it took him to slide the bolt on his home-made sniper rifle backwards and forwards again the commando had covered nearly a hundred meters, grabbed the weapon and was readying it to crush his skull. Instead the swing had reversed, hit him in the chest and pushed him from his crouch to fully upright, the return blow had snapped his right arm and crushed some of the ribs it knocked against.

As far as he could tell at least half of his ribs were broken at least once, along with his right arm and his cheekbone. His left leg was almost certainly dislocated and his right eye closed over from swelling. All he could taste in his desert dry throat was the metallic taste of his own blood. In short he hurt, a lot.

"Good morning filth" came a voice he failed to recognise. As he painfully looked up he saw that it was the very same man who had beaten him down. Saotome Ranma stood over him with an expression that would have made Korean torturers blanch. "I won't ask how you are feeling because I really don't care. The simple truth is that right now you think you are in a lot of pain. You are wrong. By the time my master sergeant is through with you, you will dream of only feeling this bad." The man moved closer and turned Johnson onto his back with a boot.

"But before that happens you are going to tell me everything you know, and you are going to plead for your life. It won't work but you won't care by that point." He stepped away and said one word, "Gos," and then the world dissolved into nightmares.

-

* * *

-

"Who was he" Richard asked. He was sitting in Nabiki's office, more for the company than anything else. Not four feet away the two babies were investigating new ways to put things in their mouths, quietly overseen by the new widow.

"Technician Johnson" Nabiki said handing him a file. "Canadian born and a fairly old hand." She said still going over his list of associates.

Richard took one look at the photo in the file and said "I know him!"

"What?" demanded both women at once.

"Where from?" Nabiki asked.

"I'm trying to remember" he said wracking his brain, but it wasn't coming. He knuckled his forehead and tried harder but still he couldn't place the man.

"Stop" commanded Nabiki. He obeyed and looked at her. "Try colours, what colours do you associate him with?" she prompted. Suddenly it all fell into place, the proverbial light bulb lit.

"CIA" he said with sudden conviction, and both women's faces went cold as ice.

"I am going to kill them all" Laura hissed.

"Join the queue" Nabiki replied.

"Oh no" Laura retorted, "I get first go."

"Done, but I get a turn too" said Richard, the two girls looked at him and he knew he had chosen the right side.

* * *

- 

Special Agent Jonathon Flag, aka technician Johnson was lying in a puddle of his own effluent, shaking like a leaf in a hurricane. Like every deep cover agent he had been schooled in anti-torture techniques but this was way beyond him. The people here were far too good at this. The story said that if questioned by a professional everyone broke on day three, but Flag was having trouble getting through hour three.

In his line of work capture, torture and eventual murder were par for the course but he was having a really hard time convincing himself that he could have expected this. Then the voice of his tormentor cut through his haze.

"Special agent Flag you have been holding out on me" said the devil in human form. "I am most…disappointed." And then the nightmares and screaming started all over again.

In the viewing room Nabiki, Laura and Richard all stood watching the man thrash around on his broken limbs.

"What are you doing to him?" Richard asked, somewhat repulsed.

"Remember the globe-tv" Nabiki asked. He nodded, "we have found that making captives relive the memories of the alien experiments is most….'efficient,' in making them more compliant.

"So at the moment.."

"At the moment he is imagining himself on one of the vivisection tables under the alien's lasers. It is quite frightening I believe." Nabiki explained in a voice that could have frozen larva. Richard shuddered and then staved off his sympathy with the memory of what this man's victim had sacrificed so that he and people like him would not have to actually experience what the CIA man was imagining.

"He'll break soon," said Nabiki. "In the mean time I suggest we make some more phone calls."

* * *

- 

Indeed the agent broke very soon indeed and was heartily begging them to listen to him. As it happens Gos wasn't convinced so he got another hour's torment before they finally let him talk. And talk he did, he named names, offered codes, fingered accomplices and told every little secret he had, from his fondness for Thai lady-boys to stealing form the school shop when he was ten.

Everything was carefully recorded and re-verified and then finally, after half a day of questioning the session ended, leaving the traitor a broken wreck of a man, full of shame, remorse and regret.

Which is when Laura stepped into the room. She had brought a doctor with her who administered a jab, with what felt like a hosepipe.

"What you are feeling is a stimulant, for the next few, final, moments of your life you will feel everything, absolutely everything." She stepped around him, turning him onto his back much as Ranma had done.

"Actually you're in luck, my shrink tells me that any extended torture of you will harm me nearly as much as it would harm you." She lifted his head between her hands. "So if I can't make this last I have to make it hurt!" and with that she pushed her thumbs into his eyeballs, and through into his brain beyond, and indeed he felt every moment of it like it was a lifetime.


	18. Wrath of Heaven

**Chapter 18. The Wrath of Heaven.**

"Mister President, madam vice president" Richard said warmly as he shook their hands. They greeted him just as warmly in return. Together they sat around the low table in the oval office. Richard had only returned to Earth less than six hours ago and had come straight here afterwards. He was ready to deliver his report, but dreading it at the same time.

Elisabeth Weir was intrigued, she had known Woolsey for years, and he had remained unfazed by some of the biggest shake-ups in political history but the man who walked into the oval office had changed. Woolsey looked somehow more alive, more driven, deeper. It showed in his voice too, the arrogant lilt that he had always spoken with was gone, replaced by a firmness that spoke of conviction. The old Woolsey had been a useful man to know this Woolsey was a man she wanted to get to know.

"Welcome back" said the president.

"Indeed, how was your trip?" Weir asked, picking up her teacup.

"Very… enlightening" Richard replied. "I saw far more than I ever expected."

"Was there trouble?" Weir asked noticing an undertone.

"Yes" Richard replied gravely, "An attempt was made on my life."

"What?" demanded Weir. "We'll get the proof and lock them all up!"

"I am glad to hear that" Richard replied, not voicing the 'but.' "They killed a friend of mine in my stead."

"Who?" Weir asked, wondering where Richard dug a friend up, let alone one as close as the dead person seemed to be.

"An agent who led one of the X-com teams" Richard replied.

"You turned one of their leaders?" Weir congratulated.

"No" he replied.

"But you said-"

"If I may" he interrupted. "The truth is I was ready to damn them all to the scrapheap of history but then they changed my mind."

"How?" asked Hayes, fearing the worst.

"By showing me the truth" he replied. "They pulled back the skin and let me see the beating heart of the organisation."

"Wow," Weir said "Why?"

"Because they felt it was the only way to avoid a war" Richard replied.

"A war?" Hayes blurted. "You can't be serious. What could they hope to achieve?"

"Whatever they had to in order to secure their mission" Richard replied.

"You are worrying me Richard" Weir added concern in her voice.

"I hope so" he responded, "because this is far bigger than we know and a lot darker."

"I think you better start from the beginning" the president prompted.

"I'm sorry Mr. President I can't do that" Richard replied. "Not until I am sure that this room is secure."

"You're sounding like one of them" Weir warned.

"That's because I am" he replied. "And I am honoured to be such."

o  
o

* * *

o

Lieutenant Colonel Bile was getting into his car when his world changed. He had just come from a rather enjoyable visit to his mistress and was about to drive home to his rather dull wife when someone grabbed his arm, pushed a pistol into his side and bundled him into his own back seat. Even as he fell onto the seat he noticed that his own sidearm had been lifted.

He was quickly joined there by a very hefty looking woman with another gun and his assailant. The car was started without his key and soon they were speeding off through the Washington streets. So far nobody had said a word and he was still trying to work out who they were.

"Mr Bile" said the oriental man who had accosted him, "we need a word."

"I have no intention of telling you anything!" he retorted, with a smug smile.

"Oh I think you may well change your mind Mr. Bile." The man replied. Then he placed the faces, these were X-Com agents, two of the survivors of the big battles. It was then that he realised he was in serious trouble.

"Sergeant Wain" you took an oath when you joined the Recon" he pleaded, "are you going to betray it now?" She hit him with the pistol butt.

"Screw you filth" she said, "You aren't fit to say their name."

"I am an Officer of the United States of America, and a loyal one" he retorted holding one hand against his forehead.

"Bull" she replied hitting him again. "You are a spy and a traitor to your whole race," she spat, "and once we are through with your self centred lying ass you will be an ex-spy and an-ex traitor."

Little did he know that the same thing was happening to nearly a dozen other CIA men across the Globe. If he had then he really would have crapped himself.

o

o

o

o

o

o

In the basement of a suburban house Bile was introduced to two other men who had joined him in his conspiracy. Both were being carried in open bodybags. As he saw their faces he knew what the agents had found out. He didn't know how but the quick ends of his co-conspirators proved that they felt they already had enough information. Yet another lifeline was cut away and now Bile was really worrying.

He was seated on a metal chair, which in turn was on some blood splattered plastic sheeting and the traditional unguarded bulb was shined in his eyes. His mind went into overdrive, searching for something, anything that he could give these people to save his life. Unfortunately the smell of the blood and the bite of the plastic binders kept derailing his thoughts.

"Lieutenant Colonel Bile," Intoned a voice "You have betrayed your uniform, your country, your species and your planet! Do you have anything to say in your defence?"

"Y-y-yes," he replied, barely getting the word out around the lump in his throat. "I didn't know who I was working for when I started! I didn't know what he planned until I was in too deep to get out. Please you have to believe me I thought I was doing the right thing!" he was immensely relieved that the moment he stopped talking he wasn't shot.

"Who?" the voice asked.

"General Baur" he replied, "He wants the Whitehouse, he's trying to train his own psychers to take over, I DIDN'T KNOW!" There was a moment's silence and he began to hope that he had told them something they didn't know.

"Is that all you have for us?" the voice asked, and he replied by spilling all he knew of the conspiracy, from the attempts to develop fusion powered dirty bombs to the assassination plot on the X-Com heads-of staff.

"It's all in area sixty-one" he blubbed, "that's where Baur is hiding his base."

"You may have just saved your life" the voice said "All we need now is where you keep your copies of the information you helped steal."

"Anything" Bile begged, giving up his last hole-card in the hope of seeing daylight again. He never even guessed that he was being recorded, or that the bodies he had seen were in fact merely drugged and not dead. Combined with mentally induced terror the amateur theatrics had shattered his resolve without a finger being laid on him.

"Mr President, sorry to disturb you but we have some urgent news," An aide had barged in and was standing by the door with a paper clutched in his hand. Hayes excused himself and stood up to go o talk to the man. As he left Weir leant in to talk to Richard.

"Are you sure about this?" she asked.

"Beyond a shadow of a doubt" Richard replied. "My eyes are open and I don't think there is any other choice any of us can make."

"I'm not sure I can accept that," she replied. "What about the evidence you thought you had found?"

"It was planted" he replied, glancing over to where the president was talking.

"Who by?" she asked

"I think we are about to find out" he answered cryptically. Meanwhile the president was returning to his seat with a grave expression on his face.

"It seems something very bad is happening," he said as he sat. "CIA men are being snatched all over the place." Weir looked directly at Richard and the president soon followed suit.

"I think I can explain" Richard began. "Two weeks ago that friend I mentioned was shot and killed by a man who later turned out to be none other than a CIA Special Agent. He was trying to hit me, thus convincing everyone that X-Com had something to hide and forcing the UN to start closing them down. The people he was working for knew that they wouldn't go quietly and expect to profit from the efforts to control the fallout.

"However they made at least one big mistake. Agent Flag had to be extremely good to go so long without new orders, effectively he would be his own handler and responsible for his own independent action. Unfortunately for them this skill and ability allowed him to know far more about their operation than he was meant to. When he was caught he talked. X-Com has spent the last two weeks preparing their response to the attack.

"What you are seeing is Operation Clean Sweep. In one move the X-com agents are trying to collect up all the people that Flag fingered. From there they will be tried and sentenced."

"They will be given a fair trial and then shot?" Weir insinuated.

"As a good person once said to me, 'That depends on you'" Richard quoted.

"What do you mean?" Weir asked.

"They want you to sit on the bench" he replied. "In the interest of fairness they feel that the scum have the right to a proper trial with an impartial judge." Of course what he didn't add was that Nabiki was also hoping to sidestep the illegality of their actions and force Weir to try to be impartial about their case at the same time she judged the others.

"And if I refuse?" Weir asked.

"You won't" said the president. "I want you to do this." She nodded and it was sealed.

o

* * *

o 

In Alaska a lone soldier was pacing back and forth in front of a large metal door as the sleet came down. He was cold, wet and miserable and not really doing his job. Suddenly from behind him a snowy bush rasied up and pulled a wire taught around his neck. He fell to the floor, the knee locked in his spine ensuring that he had no chance for real resistance. Within a few heartbeats he had blacked out, a few more and he would never wake again.

Alpha commando rose from concealment around the base entrance. Their camouflage gillie coats having effectively hidden them in the weather. Two of them set charges and retired. The assault on area 61 was on.

Within two minutes they had seized the upper levels and were well on their way lower. The resistance had been very light so far and no match for the ferocity and momentum of the commando.

"Breach and clear" Ranma signalled with his hand, pointing at another barrack room. Then he turned to lead the others down the feeder corridor, moving inorexibly closer to the primary target,

From the corner ahead two snow camouflaged soldiers appeared, M16's at their shoulders. Gauss propelled rounds punched through their flimsy flak armour, leaving them flattened on the floor with gaping holes where their chests had been. Without a second look Ranma's team moved on.

They were now in amongst the labs, turning up the atrocities that the base had tried to hide. Men, women and children had been brought in and experimented upon. The vast majority had lost their minds under the amateur attacks of Baur's mind police. There were also hostages, family of men and women that Baur had 'recruited' or of people in important positions that Baur needed influence over. Nearly every room had its own explosive charge wired in. Alpha didn't even try to defuse them, if the control centre wasn't taken soon the whole base might be destroyed.

As they breached the final level a hail of automatic laser fire greeted them. One of the Commando members didn't get down fast enough and caught a triple tap. His armour stopped the shots all but completely, unfortunately that wasn't quite enough and when he reached cover he was in a lot of pain from the shot that got through, destroying the right side of his face. The room they were in was large, almost cavernous and over looked by the command centre, which in turn had blast shields over the windows. The room also contained a dozen of Baur's best killers.

Ranma waved his hand, signalling two commandos to lay down covering fire, and then tapped Laura and another agent on the shoulders, and counted down from three with his fingers. As the last finger dropped the three of them popped up and let rip. The crates and ammo boxes that their opponents were hiding behind were destroyed in glorious technicolor explosions. Baur's men tried to break for new cover but by then the other agents had joined in and not one of them made it.

With two more quick hand signals agents were detailed to 'check' the wounded and the others moved tactically towards the command centre.

o

* * *

o  
o 

Laura kicked the bullet riddled door, knocking it wide. Ranma hurled himself past the opening in a crouch, snub-gauss-rifle leading the way. The six guards inside tried to track him with their own weapons but were suddenly stunned by a concussion grenade. X-Com weapons barked their defiance and the guards fell, twitching to the floor. The technicians threw themselves to the floor and covered their heads.

As it turned out one was shamming and popped up at the last moment with a .44 cal pistol, but Ranma's left-handed palm strike knocked him clear across the room and smack, headfirst into a wall. He went splat.

Alpha secured the room but were more than a little puzzled, why wasn't Baur here? With Ranma once more in the lead they carried on, leaving a pair of men to guard the room.

They found Baur in his office, smoking pistol still in his fist, his own brains spread across the wall behind him. There was no sign of why or what had prompted the action. For the time being Alpha didn't care.

Except Laura, she cared, she took three steps over to the body and stomped her boot firmly into his nuts. "Shit-head!" she swore "Hope those devils bugger you senseless!" She stomped him again, harder.

From there Alpha called in the support teams and began emptying the base of every last bit of data and every living soul.

Less than two hours after the first sentry died area 61 was destroyed by fire.


	19. Finale

**Chapter 19: Finale?**

"Having heard the evidence brought before this court I have no other choice but to find you, Captain Silas, guilty of high treason and pronounce the harshest sentence of the court, death by firing squad!" Weir pronounced the sentence with a heart like permafrost. In the quiet moment that followed her deadly pronouncement she felt another small slice of her soul die.

As the court rose again Weir watched the weeping man be led away for summary execution. Like all the others she had sentenced there would be no appeal, no remittance of sentence, no reprieve, the man would die within the hour.

Richard approached, his new hardness of resolve visible in the very way he walked. He reached out a hand to her, another thing he would never have done before Mars, and clutched her shoulder.

"Not far to go Elisabeth" he said.

"Not many more men to kill?" she asked.

"Not many more wrongs to make right" he replied.

"Is there no other way?" she asked, emotion cracking her voice.

"If there is we don't know it," he answered.

o

* * *

o 

o

The extent of Baur's treachery was only just coming out. With his eyes set on ultimate power he had taken every step he could towards destabilisation. Advanced arms had been sold to any radical nutter that guaranteed to use them. Rumours had spread of the longevity treatment and riots had followed. Miracle cures were suddenly a cause of civil unrest.

Cults of alien worshippers clashed with right wing reactionaries and everywhere the world was going crazy. Many smaller countries were in states of martial law and only force was keeping order. Ultimately the whole nightmare could be laid at Baur's door.

The only good thing was that the X-Com spin off that had cornered the latest generation of home entertainment systems was vetting their broadcasts and had launched an unsolicited propaganda program.

o

* * *

o

The other good news cam from Mars orbit. Nemesis was ready. Her final crew was being selected and the command staff cross trained. For 'Ranko' it was a nightmare, the damn interceptors just wouldn't do what they were told, it felt like trying to fight in tar. Added to that the idiot instructors kept trying to make a 'real soldier' out of her, and Ranma just didn't do formal discepline. The only reason that they didn't wash her out was that despite the redhead's hatred of the craft and her lack of 'soldiery-ness' she was easily one of the best flyers, with an innate grasp of three dimensional, zero-g combat.

Nabiki on the other hand was experiencing the old thrill of power. Bridge command was amazing, it required her to know everything that was going on aboard the ship. She would have weapons and tactical officers to fight the ship, her job would be to run it, essentially logistics, people and information management. Nabiki excelled from the very start.

Laura for her part made sure she was assigned to the marine complement. With Ranma apparently 'elsewhere' she found herself promoted to Sergeant Major of Marines, they had tried to give her a full commission but she had threatened to keep punching officers till they took it away again and it was quietly dropped. She would have to serve under another officer but she was dead sure that whoever they were they could be 'trained.' It may take her a while to get them up to quality she had her last commanding officer but not everyone learnt as fast as a Saotome.

o

* * *

o

Nabiki was walking on the bridge, her bridge, the lights were out and the only illumination was the stars coming in the view-windows. Tomorrow her crew would come aboard and final proving would begin. But for now the ship was all her own.

Suddenly the lift doors opened and someone was standing, illuminated by the lift lights.

"They told me you might be here" said the love of her life in the voice of a young woman.

"Is that how you address a superior officer pilot?" Nabiki asked smiling.

"Yup," 'Ranko' replied. Stepping closer and answering her smile.

As two parts of the same whole they melded together. Their kisses ignoring the current gender similarities instead focusing on expressing their love and passion.

"Fancy christening my command chair?" Nabiki whispered breathily into her husband-turned wife's ear. She could feel the poor man's sudden flush of colour.

"Er um I er well." He stammered. She rescued him with her cup of coffee. And then made good on hr offer.


End file.
